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GYMNASTIC      PAPERS 

EDITED     BT 

JAKOB      BOLIN 

645  Madison  Avenue  New  York  City 


Serie4  A 


dumber  2 


Why  Do  We 

TeaLch 
GymnaLstics  ? 

BY 

JAKOB    BOLIN 


PRICE  : —TWENTY-FIVE    CENTS 


CopyrlgKt    1903    by    JAKOB    BOLIN 


Gymnastics 


One  individual  takes  gymnastics  for  his  health ;  an- 
other to  overcome  his  awkwardness ;  a  third  for  the 
pleasure  that  he  derives  from  bodily  activity;  a  fourth 
to  get  an  opportunity  to  show  his  ability  and  to  be 
admired  by  others.  Each  has  a  mere  personal  object 
in  view.  , 

We  may  endeavor  to  fill  the  varying  wants  of  differ- 
ent individuals,  and  thus  address  ourselves  to  one  class 
of  clients  or  another.  But  that  is  essentially  a  com- 
mercial question.  The  one  has  something  to  sell  which 
the  other  wants  to  buy. 

This  narrow,  personal,  or  commercial  aspect  can, 
however,  be  allowed  only  a  very  small  place  in  the 
thoughts  of  those  who  seriously  advocate  gymnastics. 
They  do  not  concern  themselves  with  individual  de- 
sires, but  claim  that  gymnastics  is  imperatively  needed 
for  the  race.  They  wish  the  community,  the  State,  the 
Nation,  to  step  in  to  furnish  gymnastics  to  all  its  citi- 
zens, claiming  that  thereby  the  purpose  of  the  State 
may  be  better  realized.  Supplying  the  means  of  happi- 
ness to  one  individual  here,  to  another  there,  is  properly 
the  function  of  private  initiative.  The  State  has  nothing 
to  do  with  it.  She  should  not  do  anything  for  my  bene- 
fit, or  your  benefit,  except  so  far  as  it  redounds  to  her 
own  benefit.  All  that  does  not  so  redound  lies  outside 
of  her  functions.  You  may  send  your  boy  to  school 
in  order  thereby  to  assure  him  a  greater  amount  of 


,.'* 


•  <• , , 


"  Why  Do  We  Teach' GV'm nasties? 

happiness  in  life.  But  the  State  receives  him  at  school 
not  primarily  for  his  sake,  but  for  her  own,  to  assure 
herself  that  he  shall  fill  his  proper  place  as  a  future 
citizen. 

When,  in  a  general  discussion,  we  speak  of  the  pur- 
pose of  gA-mnastics,  we  must  therefore  focus  our  atten- 
tion, not  on  filling  the  individual  desires,  but  on  an  in- 
quiry as  to  whether,  and  in  what  manner,  the  general 
effectiveness  and  usefulness  of  the  citizen  may  be  en- 
hanced. If  a  general  introduction  of  gymnastics  will 
make  better  citizens,  then  it  is  the  duty  of  the  State  to 
furnish  it.  If  on  the  contrary  it  merely  addresses  itself 
to  comparatively  few  individuals,  the  State  may  or  may 
not  consider  herself  bound  to  undertake  the  work,  which 
in  such  case  might  perhaps  assume  the  character  of  a 
semi-charitable  institution,  such  as  schools  for  defec- 
tives, or  possibly  be  classified  with  subsidized  operas  or 
other  agencies  for  a  specialized  education. 

But  this  is  our  contention,  on  the  correctness  of 
which  we  stand  or  fall,  that  gymnastics  increases  the 
general  effectiveness  and  usefulness  of  the  average  indi- 
vidual coming  under  its  influence  to  such  a  degree  that 
the  State  would  be  well  repaid  by  a  higher  level  of  her 
citizens  for  the  labor  and  expense  of  the  general  intro- 
duction of  this  subject. 

We  argue  for  the  introduction  of  gymnastics  into  the 
schools,  because  the  school  is  the  agency  by  which  the 
State  lays  the  foundation  for  the  usefulness  of  the 
individual,  and  because  it  is  through  the  public  school 
that  the  greatest  multitude  may  be  reached. 

Like  everything  else,  the  school  is  constantly  under- 
going a  process  of  evolution.  The  school  of  to-day  is 
quite  different  from  that  of  yesterday,  and  to-morrow 
will  see  new  changes.  I  But  through  it  all  the  general 


WKy  Do  We  Teach  Gymnastics?  3 

purpose  is  clear :  the  school  shall  fit  for  Hfe,  shall  edu- 
cate. ]  Not  in  the  sense  that  it  is  to  be  considered  the 
only,  or  even  the  chief,  educative  agency.  Surrounding 
conditions  force  an  education  upon  us  whether  we  have 
schools  or  not.  This  process  is  an  effective  one.  Those 
who,  from  one  cause  or  another,  respond  improperly 
to  the  influences  of  surrounding  conditions  are  crowded 
to  the  wall,  weaken,  disappear,  are  weeded  out.  Those 
who  react  most  in  accord  with  nature's  laws  are  re- 
warded, strengthened,  saved  to  propagate  the  race.  But 
nature  is  a  hard  taskmaster.  She  is  just,  but  knows  no 
mercy.  If  the  individual  development  be  left  to  fortui- 
tous circumstances,  there  are  many,  very  many,  who 
will  fall  by  the  wayside,  because  of  the  mistakes  they 
make.  To  help  the  individual,  to  make  it  possible  for 
him  to  profit  by  the  experiences  of  those  who  have 
passed  before  him,  the  school  was  brought  in.  It  is  ■ 
not  intended  that  it  shall  supply  a  substitute  for  educa- 
tion through  life ;  in  fact,  it  cannot,  but  it  rather  serves 
as  a  valuable  complement.  The  means  it  utilizes  vary 
with  the  changing  experiences.  At  first  the  school  en-  ^ 
deavored  to  assist  the  individual  by  furnishing  him 
knowledge  of  isolated  facts  which  might  be  of  value 
in  after  life.  A  mass  of  names,  dates,  and  events  consti- 
tuted history.  There  was  no  study  of  the  development 
of  thought  and  institutions.  The  education  in  geog- 
raphy consisted  chiefly  in  the  cramming  of  boundary 
lines,  names  of  cities,  their  location,  the  number  of  their 
inhabitants,  the  altitude  of  mountains,  the  length  of 
rivers.  Natural  conditions  and  resources  which  influ- 
ence the  civilization  of  man  and  determine  the  direction 
of  his  pursuits  were  given  no  heed.  The  language 
teacher  dealt  mainly  with  glossaries,  grammatical  rules, 
paradigms,  not  with  the  thoughts  expressed.     Botany 


4  Why  Do  We  Teach  Gymnastics? 

was  a  jumble  of  names,  families,  classes,  orders  of  plants, 
not  their  relation  to  the  development  of  life  and  to  man. 
Such  instruction  as  was  offered  in  physical  activity  had 
for  its  purpose  to  give  the  pupil  a  direct  utilitarian 
ability  in  definite  circumscribed  fields.  It  was  the  teach- 
ing of  trades  and  crafts.  Education  in  the  modern  sense 
had  little  place  in  this  school.  We  might  say  that  the 
child-mind  was  considered  as  a  miniature  of  the  adult 
mind,  while  the  physical  child  was  looked  upon  as  a 
pocket  edition  of  the  full  grown  man  and  woman.  For 
both  mind  and  body  growth  was  considered  all-essen- 
tial, and  was  to  be  brought  about  by  passive  absorption 
of  new  material.  The  development,  the  gradual  change, 
concomitant  with  mere  growth,  was  overlooked. 

But  new  ideas  were  born,  developed.  It  became  evi- 
dent that  the  facts  poured  into  the  child's  mind,  and 
the  abilities  given  his  body,  were  too  few  to  fill  the  needs 
ot  a  life  which  grew  ever  more  complex.  Comenius, 
Rousseau,  Pestalozzi,  and  others  urged  the  presentation 
of  more  facts  than  formerly.  But  at  the  same  time  they 
pointed  out  that  the  facts  should  not  merely  be  pre- 
sented to  the  passive  pupil.  He  should  himself  gather 
"them  in  by  his  own  activity.  Thus  came  the  impulse  to 
"gaming  by  doing,"  of  which  we  now  hear  so  much,  and 
wmch  led  to  school  laboratories,  school  gardens,  manual 
training,  all  designed  to  open  new  avenues  to  the  mind, 
to  train  the  senses  for  observation,  to  focus  attention, 
to  develop  will. 

Building  upon  this  foundation,  but  recognizing  the 
inadequacy  of  the  presentation  of  isolated  facts,  how- 
ever valuable,  however  acquired,  later  reformers,  no- 
tably Herbart  and  his  pupils,  revolutionized  the  methods 
of  the  school  by  setting  a  higher  ideal  for  it.  The 
facts    were    joined    together,   co-ordinated,  correlated. 


WKy  Do  We  Teach  Gymrvastlcs  7  5 

The  new  and  unknown  facts  were  attached  to  the  old 
and  well  known  ones  by  strong  bonds  of  union  ;  associa- 
tions were  established ;  relations  were  considered. 
Knowledge  was  no  longer  a  conglomeration  of  mem- 
orized facts,  but  a  woof  in  which  each  fact  was  firmly 
united  with  a  large  number  of  other  facts,  so  that  each 
fact  now,  because  of  its  many  relationships,  frequently 
rose  in  consciousness  to  be  utilized  for  the  elucidation  of 
many  conditions  with  which  it  had  no  connections  when 
presented  according  to  the  old  methods.  Knowing 
became  synonymous  with  understanding,  and  the 
school's  ideal  became  action  in  conformity  with  the 
understanding;  it  became  the  building  of  character. 

At  the  present  time,  the  school  is  primarily  an  insti- 
tution for  the  development  of  intellect  and  morality,  of 
power  to  think  right,  to  feel  right,  and  to  will  right.  If 
it  succeeds  in  its  purpose,  the  future  citizen  is  supposed 
to  act  right. 

As  far  as  we  can  see  now,  this  will  always  remain 
the  central  idea  in  the  school.  It  was  mainly,  through 
a  superior  mental  development  that  our  ancestors  suc- 
ceeded in  elevating  themselves  above  the  rest  of  the 
animal  kingdom.  It  was  by  the  development  of  higher 
and  ever  higher  mental  and  moral  characteristics  that 
they  gained  the  mastery  over  nature.  It  is  through  the 
development  of  these  that  we  may  hope  for  a  still  fur- 
ther rise.  It  is  by  the  fos4e«-ng~  of  thought,  feeling,  and 
will,  that  the  school  shall  make  useful  citizens.  Thought, 
feeling,  and  \yill  are  the  objects  with  which  the  school 
deals.  If  gymnastics  is  to  have  a  place  in  the  school,  it^^ 
must  have  a  favorable  influence  on  these,  directly  or  in-^ 
directly. 

But  keen  thought,  lofty  feelings,  and  right  will  are 
of  value  only  so  far  as  they  become  actualized  in  mo- 


t^ 


6  Why  Do  We  Teach  Gymrvastics? 

tion.  They  are  important  to  the  race  only  if  they  find  their 
expression  in  action.  Every  thought  and  every  feehng 
which  gHmmer  only  in  the  consciousness  of  the  individ- 
ual, without  modifying  his  actions,  are  wasted.  Human- 
ity is  not  benefited  by  him  who  imprisons  his  thoughts 
and  feelings  within  himself,  but  by  him  who  seeks  to 
give  them  an  outlet  in  some  form  of  action.  Action  is 
the  only  means  by  which  the  environment  may  be  in- 
fluenced, the  only  means  by  which  the  citizen  may  be 
useful.  Thoughts  and  feelings  do  not  suffice,  however 
good  they  may  be.  Will  without  action  is  sterile.  Ac- 
tion is  the  fruit  of  will.  That  is  a  true  ethical  formula, 
"Be  ye  doers  of  the  word,  and  not  hearers  only"  is  a 
good  Christian  doctrine.  "What  we  think,  or  what  we 
know,  or  what  we  believe,  is,  in  the  end,  of  little  con- 
sequence. The  only  thing  of  consequence  is  what  we 
do"  (Ruskin). 

If  all  this  be  true — and  nobody  denies  it — the  school 
must  ofifer  training  in  doing,  in  will — expression.  It 
must  habituate  the  child  to  realize  the  thoughts  and 
feelings  in  motion,  if  it  is  to  rear  a  race  of  doers ;  if  the 
future  citizens  are  not  to  be  mere  thinkers  and  feelers 
without  initiative ;  if  the  pupils,  when  leaving  school, 
shall  be  able  to  take  their  places  in  the  active  life 
around  them ;  if  they  are  not  to  be  mere  onlookers, 
standing  by  philosophizing  over  what  is  happening,  with- 
out endeavoring  to  direct  the  events  in  accord  with 
their  thoughts  and  feelings. 

Those  who  have  read  aright  the  history  of  the  birth 
of  gymnastics  in  Germany  and  Sweden,  those  who  have 
been  able  to  look  behind  the  mere  forms  for  the  spirit  of 
the  time,  for  the  force  which  drove  Jahn  and  Ling  to 
the  fulfillment  of  their  great  mission,  must  be  impressed 
by  the  fact  that  the  ideals  of  these  men  are  the  ideals 


WKy  Do  We  Toach  Gymnastics?  « 

of  the  school  to-day.  Their  native  countries  weak- 
ened, dismembered,  victims  of  scorn,  subjected  to  in- 
suks  and  injustice,  while  their  countrymen  in  careless 
indolence  saw  nothing,  did  nothing,  hoped  for  nothing. 
Such  were  the  scenes  upon  which  Ling  and  Jahn 
glanced.    Such  were  the  pictures  which  stirred  them  to  I 

activity.  L To    make   useful    citizens   by   uniting   strong      a\ 
bodies,  strong  minds,  and  strong  characters,  that  was      "^ 
the  aim  of  Ling,  that  was  the  object  of  Jahn,  that  is  the 
purpose  of  our  school  to-day.' 

(  The  early  gymnasts  recognized  the  necessity  of  sys- 
tematic training  in  doing.  They  recognized  that  this  was 
of  equal  importance  with  systematic  training  in  thinking. 
Therefore,  "they  introduced  gymnastics,  sports,  physical 
activity  of  various  kind.  Our  modern  educators  have 
arrived  at  the  same  conclusions.  Motor  training  is  in- 
troduced in  every  modern  school.  And  hope  is  enter- 
tained that  thereby  not  only  shall  the  pupils  acquire 
some  direct  utilitarian  dexterity  absolutely  necessary 
for  everyone  in  a  civilized  community,  such  as  writing  a 
legible  hand,  but  that  attention  shall  be  trained  in  va- 
rious directions,  that  power  of  observation  may  be  de- 
veloped, tlrat  knowledge  may  become  more  many-sided, 
because  gained  through  several  senses,  that  manifold 
relations  may  be  established  between  facts  which  nat- 
urally belong  together,  and  that  there  may  be  created 
the  ability  and  the  will  to  realize  thoughts  and  feelings 
in  action.  /The  object  in  view  is  to  make  men  and 
women  ready  and  able  to  take  their  places  as  active 
members  of  the  community. 

In  this  motor  training  which  our  schools  offer,  gym-  \ 
nasties  and  sports  enter  nominally,  but  their  place  is 
rather  without,  than  within,  the  curriculum.     They  are 
not  recognized  as  true  educative  agencies  to  be  accorded 


o  Why  Do  We  Teach  Gymnastics  ? 

the  same  care  and  attention  as  other  branches.  Where 
they  are  allotted  a  place  in  the  school,  the  place  is  in- 
significant, and  they  are  allowed  to  develop  more  or  less 
at  haphazard.  When  we  speak  of  motor  training  in  our 
school  as  it  is  to-day,  we  therefore  mean  those  branches 
which  have  been  consciously  developed  for  the  purpose 
of  assisting  in  definite  directions  in  the  real  education 
of  the  child.  The  motor  training  brought  to  our  youth 
by  the  gymnasts  still  remains  mainly  outside  the  school. 
But  the  difference  between  this  motor  training  and  the 
one  more  or  less  thoroughly  recognized  by  the  school 
makes  it  incumbent  on  us  to  ascertain  whether  the  for- 
mer can  bring  into  the  school  some  new  educative  force 
which  may  make  it  desirable  as  a  complement  to  the 
latter. 

The  changes  urged  by  the  elder  reformers  in  the  field 
of  the  school  was,  to  a  great  extent  at  least,  based  on 
the  necessity  of  increasing  the  number  and  vividness  of 
the  sense  perceptions  presented  to  the  child.  It  was 
recognized  that  one  sense  alone  does  not  give  us  a  satis- 
factory knowledge.  An  object  is  known  in  the  ratio 
that  it  gives  us  sensations.  The  more  sensations  we 
receive  from  it,  the  better  we  know  it.  For  a  complete 
knowledge  of  it,  it  is  not  enough  to  see  it.  To  know  it 
thoroughly,  we  must  hear  the  sound  it  emits  when 
struck;  we  must  get  hold  of  it,  feel  it,  lift  it,  turn  it, 
handle  it.  We  must  represent  it  by  drawing,  by  model- 
ing. Thus  only  can  we  gain  a  full  cognition  of  it.  Sense 
perception  is  the  basis  of  all  mental  lifei»  The  fewer 
sensations,  the  lower  mentality.  Idiocy  is  to  a  great 
extent  characterized  by  a  dearth  of  sensations. 

Other  things  being  equal,  the  more  numerous  and 
the  more  acute  the  sensations,  the  richer  the  mental 
life.    Anything  that  we  can  do  to  render  sensations  more 


Why  Do  We  TeacK  Gymnastics?  » 

numerous  and  more  keen  is  advantageous  to  the  intel- 
lect.   (Especially   is   this   true  in   childhood,   and   more, 
particularly   in   early   childhood,   when   the    sensational 
foundation  for  mind  development  is  laid.\ 

The   sense   organs   can   l)e   developed.     One   of  the 
reasons  why  Rousseau  brought  "Emile"  away  from  the 
cramping  influences  of  "over-civilization"  to  the  wide 
expanse  of  "nature"  was  to  give  scope  to  the  exercise 
of  the  senses.    The  blind  develop  their  sense  of  touch  to 
a  remarkable  degree.     The  expert  in  linen  detects  by 
touch  adulterations  which  escape  the  average  person. 
The  fencer  becomes  aware  of  the  slightest  movement 
of  his  opponent's  foil  so  rapidly  and  unerringly  that  it 
appears  as  if  he  were  able  to  read  the  latter's  thoughts 
even  before  they  have  taken  form.    And  so  on.    Motor 
training  is  the  only  means  by  which  this  education  of 
touch  and  muscular  sense  may  take  place.     Numerous 
perceptions,  clear-cut,  well-defined,  are  thus  formed  re- 
garding  distance,   direction,   weight,   force,  resistance, 
effort,  and  so  on,  which  without  motor  training  remain 
dim  and  vague.     The  judicious  mother  can  give  power- 
ful impulses  in  this  direction  to  her  little  one  simply  be- 
cause of  her  mother-feeling.    But  I  doubt  whether  much 
good  can  come  from  the  average  mother  undertaking 
systematic  work  with  her  infants.    She  knows  too  little 
of  child-nature.    We  know  too  little  to  guide  her  prop- 
erly.   There  would  be  too  great  a  danger  of  instituting 
a  forcing-process,  unhealthy  and  pernicious.     There  is 
only  one  absolutely  safe  rule,  by  following  'which  we 
may  at  least  cause  no  great  injury,  even  if  we  do  not 
gain  the  greatest  possible  development :    Supply  the  in- 
fant with  space  to  move  in,  allow  it  to  handle  the  differ- 
ent objects  in  this  space,  and  leave  the  process  to  nature. 
The    curiosity   and   instinct   of   the   child   will   guide   it 


10  Why  Do  We  Teach  Gymnastics  ? 

rightly.  You  may  help  it,  but  if  you  do  not  know  how, 
leave  it  alone.  In  any  event,  this  is  a  matter  for  the 
parent,  not  for  the  teacher;  for  the  home,  not  for  the 
school. 

But  the  child  grows.  It  comes  to  the  Kindergarten. 
Here  it  is  guided  more  systematically  than  formerly. 
The  senses  receive  due  attention.  Motor  training  is 
available  in  many  forms.  Regulated  play  and  games, 
songs,  paper  folding  and  cutting,  building  with  blocks, 
using  the  "gifts,"  moulding  in  sand  or  clay,  drawing,  and 
so  on.  Formal  gymnastics  in  the  true  sense  does  not 
enter.  It  should  not,  it  cannot,  for  reasons  to  give  which 
would  carry  us  too  far.  But  gradually  the  movements 
take  definite  form,  become  directed  not  only  in  a  gen- 
eral way,  but  more  closely  predetermined  by  the  teacher. 
We  enter  the  primary  school.  Gymnastics  is  in  the  cur- 
riculum. 

Like  all  forms  of  motor  training  it  educates  the 
senses.  That  is  one  of  the  benefits  our  pupils  gain  from 
it.  That  is,  and  must  be,  recognized  by  all.  We  need  no 
discussion  of  the  matter.  It  is  self-evident.  Gymnas- 
tics must  address  itself  to  the  training  of  sense  percep- 
tion. It  must  be  presented  in  such  a  manner  that  the 
senses  are  unfolded  by  it,  not  stunted  or  dulled.  It 
must  be  presented  in  the  natural  order  of  sense  develop- 
ment. But  that  is  a  principle  that  is  not  peculiar  to 
gymnastics.  It  belongs  to  everything  taught  in  the 
school.  So,  when  Dr.  Arnold  enunciated  this  principle 
in  his  paper,"  I  cannot  understand  that  he  thereby  en- 
riched our  knowledge  of  gymnastics.  He  only  reiter- 
ated a  truth,  generally  recognized  by  teachers  of  all 
branches,  even  if  they,  as  must  be  admitted,  frequently 

1.  Some  of  the  principles  that  guide  me  in  teaching  German 
gymnastics.  Report  of  the  tenth  annual  meeting  of  the  American 
Association  for  the  Advancement  of    Physical    Eduoation. 


WKy  Do  We  Teach  Gymnastics  ?  H 

overlook  it  in  their  daily  lessons.  He  certainly  did  not 
advance  any  principle  peculiar  to  the  system  which  he 
represents.  The  principle  is  common  to  all  systems.  Dr. 
Arnold  makes  much  of  gymnastics  for  sense  training. 
Dr.  Hartung  has  followed  his  lead.^  Has  gymnastics, 
then,  any  particular  claims  to  be  considered  as  a  means 
of  training  the  senses?  Is  it  in  any  way  superior  to 
other  branches  ?  Is  it  superior  to  other  forms  of  motor 
training?  These  questions  are  important.  Upon  the 
answer  depend  to  great  extent  our  methods. 
y  Gymnastics  differs  from  all  other  formal  modes  of 
motor  training  in  our  schools  inasmuch  as  it  utilizes 
the  whole  body  as  a  sense-organ,  while  the  latter  ad- 
dress themselves  only  or  mainlv  to  the  hand.  To  be 
able  to  arrive  at  cognition,  not  only  by  sight,  verified 
by  manual  touch,  but  by  sensations  derived  from  mus- 
cular contractions  in  legs,  thighs,  back,  chest,  may  at 
first  sight  appear  to  be  a  great  gain,  a  considerable 
widening  of  the  field  upon  which  our  mental  life  is  based. 
But  is  it  so  in  reality?  Pure  sensations  probably  never 
exist.  They  are  mere  psychological  abstractions.  As 
soon  as  a  sensation  is  received  in  consciousness,  it  is  a 
perception.  The  matter  of  consequence  is  not,  there- 
fore, the  sensory  stimuli  we  receive,  but  the  percep- 
tions to  which  they  give  rise.  The  question  whether  we 
get  more  or  less  stimuH  or  from  what  part  of  the  body 
they  enter  our  consciousness,  is  of  small  importance  to 
our  mental  life,  compared  with  the  one  whether  they 
are  clear,  distinct,  and  easy  of  interpretation.  And  even 
the  very  best  gymnastic  training  can  never  bring  us 
to  such  clear  and  definite  perceptions  from  our  legs 
and  back  and  the  larger  articulations  as  are  those  which 
we  receive  from  the  hands  and  the  fingers.     I  do  not 

1.    Mind  and  Body,  vol.  9,  p.  145. 


12 


WKy  Do  We  Teach  Gymrvastics? 


wish  to  belittle  the  perceptual  gain  by  gymnastics,  but 
I  can  never  be  brought  to  the  opinion  that  this  gain  is 
at  all  to  be  compared  with  what  we  are  daily  gaining 
from  manual  training  in  its  various  forms.  The  per- 
ceptions received  through  gymnastics  may  help  to  give 
a  considerably  greater  formative  material  for  the  mind 
to  elaborate.  But  the  formative  material  thus  used  will 
always  be  decidedly  inferior  in  quality  to  that  brought  us 
by  other  methods.  And,  therefore,  I  can  but  assert  that 
those  who  take  it  upon  themselves  to  advocate  gymnas- 
tics mainly,  or  even  to  a  great  extent,  upon  the  ground 
that  it  furnishes  us  w^ith  new  and  important  sense  per- 
ceptions, are  making  a  grievous  error.  'Gymnastics 
must  be  brought  into  the  very  heart  of  our  educational 
system  for  several  reasons.  But  to  bring  forth  claims 
for  it  as  a  powerful  agency  in  training  the  perceptions 
seems  to  me  to  be  a  mistake,  based  upon  the  most 
narrow  conception.  It  is  exactly  in. line  with  the  claims 
of  the  one-idea-men  in  medicine.  It  is,  according  to 
my  viewpoint,  as  if  a  general  were  using  his  auxiliary 
troops  as  his  main  forces,  employing  them  for  the  main 
attack  when  they  should  be  utilized  only  for  supporting 
and  strengthening  his  position.  I  think  we  shall  always 
be  obliged. to  consider  the  development  of  perceptions 
through  gymnastics,  but  we  cannot  make  this  a  promi- 
nent part  of  the  educational  value  which  we  expect  from 
a  general  introduction  of  this  branch  into  our  schools.  J 
And,  after  all,  whatever  view  we  may  take  of  the  de- 
velopment of  perceptions  from  our  wQrk,  we  are  bound 
to  recognize  that  this  training  belongs  to  the  earliest 
period  of  life.  For  the  small  child  it  is,  I  hold,  of  no  in- 
considerable importance  to  enlarge  and  enrich  the  field 
of  sensory  perceptions.  Perhaps  it  may  be  counted 
as  of  great  value  up  to  ten  or  twelve  years  of  age ;  but 


WKy  Do  We  Teach  Gymnastics  ?  13 

thereafter  its  value  surely  rapidly  diminishes.    The  mind 
after  that  age  deals,  not  with  things,  but  with  relations. 
The  mind  then  is  built,  not  upon  the  formation  of  im- 
ages, but  upon  the  growth  of  general  notions.    Percep- 
tion wanes,  conception  waxes.    And  we  should  certainly 
not  allow  ourselves  to  be  carried  away  by  any  idea  that 
conception  is  the  mere  adding  of  percept  to  percept. 
The  percepts  must  be  present,  vivid  and  numerous,  for 
the  formation  of  concepts.    But  conception  is  not  a  mere 
conglomeration  of  percepts.    It  is  a  process  of  abstrac- 
tion.    It  is  the  relating,  the  comparing,  the  classifying 
of  percepts  according  to  their  similarities  and  dissim- 
ilarities.    It  is  a  process  of  thought.    The  percepts  are 
only  the  material  of  thought.     By  furnishing  a  richer 
thought  material  the  motor  training  assists  thinking, 
with  all  that  it  implies  of  reflection,  imagination,  judg- 
ment, and  so  on.     By  giving  richer  perceptual  content 
to  the  mind,  possibilities  for  more  associations  are  fur- 
nished.    But  beyond  that  it  cannot  go.     The  processes 
themselves  can  only  be  developed  by  their  own  practice. 
You  cannot  learn  to  think  through  gymnastics.     Prac- 
tice in  thinking  is  the  only  way  by  which  we  learn  to 
think.    You  can  only  utilize  the  additional  percepts  given 
by  gymnastics  as  material  for  thought.  And  as  these  are 
dim  and  vague,  the  thoughts  to  which  they  give  rise 
will  be  dim  and  vague.    Some  enthusiasts  apparently 
claim  more  for  motor  training  in  general  and  for  gym- 
nastics in  particular,  as  assisting  thought  and  reflection, 
than  is  warranted  by  the  facts.    Just  as  I  am  willing  to 
grant  a  certain  efficiency  to  gymnastics  in  developing 
sense  perception,  so  I  am  willing  to  admit  that  it  may 
assist  in  forming  concepts.     Just  as  willing  as  I  am  to 
assert  that  it  is  of  some  advantage  to  the  pupil  to  re- 
ceive his  perceptions  of  various  kinds  through  his  whole 


14  WKy  Do  W«  Teach  Gymnastics? 

body,  so  I  acknowledge  that  gymnastics  may  be  utilized 
to  fortify  and  strengthen  concepts.  But  positive  as  I  am 
that  by  far  the  most  important  percepts  gained  by  motor 
training  are  not  gained  by  that  particular  form  called 
gymnastics,  I  am  equally  positive  that  the  concepts 
formed  by  gymnastics  are  of  small  importance  com- 
pared with  those  reached  through  other  avenues.  I  do 
not  deny  that  gymnastics  contributes  to  right  thinking 
by  its  direct  influence  on  the  mind.  But  I  do  deny  that 
to  be  the  main  benefit  derived  from  it. 

It  is  proper  that  we  ourselves  should  be  enthusiastic. 
It  is  but  right  that  we  should  believe  thoroughly  in  the 
value  of  our  own  work.  But  it  is  a  dangerous  pro- 
cedure to  make  sweeping  statements  which  cannot  be 
substantiated  or  verified.  Does  Dr.  Arnold  consider 
that  the  appreciation  of  weight,  distance,  resistance,  etc., 
can  be  gained  only  through  gymnastics,  or  very  much 
better  through  gymnastics  than  through  other  means? 
Does  he  think  that  the  additional  knowledge  received 
from  gymnastics  is  of  great  value  to  our  mental  develop- 
ment? Does  Dr.  Hartung  believe  that  the  "multitude 
of  conceptions  and  judgments"  arrived  at  through  gym- 
nastics are  of  vital  importance  to  a  well  educated  mem- 
ber of  society?  I  do  not.  I  could  not  bring  myself  to 
advocate  taking  up  the  children's  time  with  gymnastics, 
if  I  considered  that  these  conceptions  and  judgments 
were  the  chief  benefit  they  would  derive  from  it.  I 
would  not  have  my  own  children  "complete  their  edu- 
cation" through  gymnastics,  did  I  not  think  that  there 
were  more  vital  questions  involved.  I  do  believe  that 
the  training  of  the  senses,  the  development  of  concep- 
tions, etc.,  through  gymnastics  is  the  very  least  educa- 
tional gain  to  be  derived  from  it,  and  also  do  I  believe 
it  better  for  the  cause  of  physical  education    that  we 


Why  Do  We  Teach  Gymr\astlcs7  15 

treat  the  direct  increments  in  that  line  as  mere  inci- 
dentals, which  may  well  be  put  in  parentheses  when  we 
array  the  benefits  of  gymnastics.  We  must  acknowledge 
that  they  are  secured  better,  quicker,  and  more  com- 
pletely by  other  branches  in  our  schools.  I  do  not  deny 
them.  Nor  does  anybody.  But  I  believe  that  our  Ger- 
man friends  are  making  a  great  tactical  mistake  in  lay- 
ing such  stress  on  these  matters.  Rather  might  we  all 
join  hands  in  attacking  the  problem  from  a  different 
standpoint. 

The  time  is  past  when  the  school  worked  mainly  for 
the  development  of  thought.  Everywhere  the  demand  is 
growing  that  the  school  shall  form  character  first  of  all. 
But  what  is  character?  I  do  not  know  that  anyone  has 
ever  given  a  perfectly  satisfactory  definition  of  the  term. 
We  might  perhaps  say,  however,  that  it  is  the  general 
attitude  of  the  individual  to  life,  shown  by  his  knowledge 
and  feeling,  and  by  the  manner  in  which  he  reacts.  In 
fact,  [the  mode  of  reaction  seems  to  be  the  essential  fac- 
tor in  character.  And  hence,  character-building  means 
training  in  proper  reaction.  It  means  the  development 
of  volition  first  of  all.  And  if  so,  motor  training  is  the 
sine  qua  non  of  character  formation,  because  the  motor 
organs  are  the  organs  of  the  will.  The  school  now  ad- 
mittedly strives  to  develop  will  by  the  various  forms 
of  motor  training  in  its  curriculum.  So  far,  so  good. 
But  this  motor  training  seems  to  me  to  be  altogether 
inadequate.  The  leading  pedagogues,  in  advocating 
motor  training,  have  long  said  that  they  wished  to  "send 
the  whole  boy  to  school."  But  it  seems  to  me  that  the 
training  in  vogue  takes  him  apart,  training  one  piece 
of  him  during  this  lesson,  another  part  during  that,  so 
to  speak.  The  whole  boy  is  never  trained  at  once,  so 
far  as  I  can  see.     His  hand,  his  eye,  his  brain  are  all 


16  Why  Do  We  Teach  Gymnastics? 

trained ;  other  parts  also.  But  they  are  never  really  put 
to  working  all  together  in  a  hearty  all-sided,  simul- 
taneous co-operation  with  each  other.  The  brain  is 
used  to  guide  the  hand,  the  eye  is  called  in  to  help,  but 
when  is  the  boy  as  a  whole,  with  head  and  arms  and  legs 
and  trunk,  called  upon  to  launch  himself  as  a  unit  at 
something,  against  something,  for  the  purpose  of  making 
it  yield  by  the  whole  force  and  weight  there  is  in  him? 
When  is  the  boy  encouraged  to  pit  himself  against  some- 
thing that  is  really  offering  a  formidable  obstacle  to  his 
will?  When  is  he  required  to  do  something  by  which 
he  may  come  to  an  understanding  of  his  ability  to  over- 
come difficulties  by  putting  his  whole  mind  and  body 
upon  it?  Our  civilization  demands  the  strictest  atten- 
tion to  details.  This,  I  believe,  the  present  school  strives 
admirably  to  secure.  But  the  present  time  demands 
something  more  than  that.  Fifteen-dollar-a-week 
clerks,  bookkeepers,  salesmen,  artisans,  people  who 
"fill"  their  places  by  attending  to  the  details  immediately 
demanded  of  them  are  numerous  enough.  But  the 
complaint  is  heard  everywhere  that  ambition  to  rise, 
and  ability  to  rise  beyond  mere  drudgery,  are  rare.  We 
need  more  than  anything  else  people  with  enthusiasm 
for  their  vocations,  with  an  eye  open  for  their  mani- 
fold relations  to  everything  around  them,  with  ability 
not  only  to  do  the  task  allotted  to  them  in  their  little 
pigeonholes,  but  ready  to  widen  out,  to  grasp  new  op- 
portunities, to  assume  greater  duties,  to  do  work  outside 
the  exact  limits  for  which  they  are  immediately  com- 
pensated, to  become  leaders.  "There  is  always  room  at 
the  top,"  because  so  few  are  really  willing  to  work  hard 
to  gain  the  top.  Everybody  is  inclined  to  think  that 
what  is  not  immediately  prescribed  as  his  particular  duty 
should  be  left  for  somebody  else  to  do,  and  the  result 


Why  Do  We  TeacK  Gymnastics?  I"? 

is  that  so  very  much  remains  undone  which  should  and 
could  be  done.  The  school  should  educate  not  to  mere 
thinking  and  reflection,  nor  to  mere  small  activities, 
but  should  create  initiative,  willingness,  desire,  anxiety 
to  do  anything  which  ought  to  be  done  and  comes 
wdthin  one's  ken.  The  school  should  give  the  pupil  that 
indefinable  tendency  to  take  hold  which  is  so  generally 
lacking.  Our  education  is  responsible  for  the  fact  that 
the  office  boy  sits  still  until  ordered  about,  instead  of 
finding  something  to  do,  and  thus  showing  that  he  is 
interested  not  merely  in  his  weekly  stipend,  but  in  the 
affairs  of  the  firm.  It  is  the  fault  of  our  education  that 
the  attendants  in  a  hotel  foyer  are  so  remarkably  anx- 
ious not  to  carry  a  satchel,  that  they  let  the  guest  wait, 
if  it  is  not  the  turn  of  the  one  nearest  at  hand.  Our 
education  is  to  blame  that  laws  are  not  enforced,  be- 
cause nobody  wants  to  bother  about  it.  You  may  not 
think  it  shows  dignity  for  a  district  attorney  to  raid 
gambling  places  with  a  sledge-hammer ;  but  you  are 
yourself  responsible  for  it  because  you  refuse  to  do  your 
little  share  in  compelling  respect  for  the  laws.  You  make 
the  laws,  and  see  them  violated  daily,  without  really  car- 
ing to  see  them  enforced.  If  anybody  tries  to  enforce 
them  by  means  not  to  your  fancy  you  grumble,  criticise, 
find  fault,  and  there  you  end.  We  have  too  many  of  that 
kind  of  citizens.  We  have  too  little  active  work.  One 
of  our  citizens,  much  in  the  public  eye  of  late,  has  re- 
cently expressed  his  preference  for  a  healthy  and  active 
devil  as  compared  to  an  angel  down  with  nervous  pros- 
tration. I  think  more  of  us  are  coming  to  that  opinion 
every  day.  "The  strenuous  life"  has  been  preached  to 
us  considerably  of  late  years.  It  is  beginning  to  find 
more  and  more  admirers.  That  is  what  we  want.  And 
we  are  coming  to  it.     Our  civilization  forces  us  to  it. 


18  WKy  Do  We  Teach  Gymnastics? 

President  Roosevelt  and  Emperor  William,  J.  P.  Mor- 
gan and  Charles  M.  Schwab,  cowboys  and  the  new  gen- 
eration of  college  presidents,  you  may  criticise  them  all, 
but  in  your  heart  you  respect  them  because  they  are  do- 
ing something,  while  you  are  half  asleep.  We  must 
have  more  men  of  that  type.  And  it  is  our  educational 
system  which  has  the  responsibihty  of  furnishing  them. 
But  we  must  then  have  something  else  in  our  schools 
than  we  have  at  present.  We  have  all  heard  the  com- 
plaint that  a  college  education  unfits  for  practical  life. 
While  this  statement  is  probably  exaggerated,  without 
doubt  there  is  a  kernel  of  truth  in  it.  The  college  has 
never  given  us  too  much  study,  but  it  has  given  us  too 
little  of  life.  It  is,  however,  improving.  The  new  genera- 
tion will  be  less  open  to  criticism  in  this  regard.  Similar 
are  the  conditions  in  our  schools.  We  train  the  will  there. 
But  it  is  a  negative  rather  than  a  positive  will,  a  will  of 
inhibition  rather  than  one  of  execution.  "Don't  do 
this !  Don't  do  that !"  A  war  is  waged  against  sins  of 
commission.  Sins  of  omission  flourish.  What  there  is 
of  training  to  a  positive  will  is  training  in  small  things, 
not  unimportant  but  physically  small,  detail  work,  hand- 
work, poking  at  test  tubes,  making  match  stands,  draw- 
ing maps.  That  is  all  very  well ;  it  is"  a  necessary  will 
training.  But  it  must  be  supplemented.  We  must  have 
wholehearted  action  of  our  whole  persons,  we  must  learn 
to  "make  things  hum,"  and  to  make  us  feel  the  respon- 
sibility not  merely  for  the  little  things  directly  assigned 
to  us,  but  for  all  that  which  goes  on  around  us. 

A  friend  of  mine,  an  orthopedic  surgeon,  who  em- 
ploys gymnasts  for  some  of  his  work,  not  long  ago 
spoke  to  me  in  terms  of  the  highest  appreciation  of 
one  of  them,  who  was  a  graduate  of  a  normal  school  of 
gymnastics,   doctor  of  medicine,  director   of  a   college 


Why  Do  We  TeacK  Gymnastics  7  19 

gymnasium.  And  it  was  not  chiefly  her  superior  knowl- 
edge which  made  him  place  her  ahead  of  all  his  other 
assistants.  It  was  her  ability  always  to  find  something 
to  do,  her  inability  to  just  "hang  around."  When  one  day 
upon  finding  her  kneeling  in  a  dark  closet  with  scrub- 
bing brush  and  a  pail  of  water,  he  remonstrated  with  her 
on  the  necessity  of  leaving  such  labor  to  others,  she 
simply  declared  that  at  that  particular  ni'oment  she  had 
nothing  else  to  do,  that  it  was  desirable  that  it  should 
be  done,  and  that  she  probably  did  it  better  than  any  of 
the  servants  anyhow.  That  is  the  spirit  our  education 
should  give.  Nothing  too  low,  nothing  too  high  for  us 
to  pitch  into.  If  that  spirit  is  cultivated,  if  will  of  that 
kind  is  made,  our  nation  is  safe.  We  may  go  astray 
sometimes,  but  we  will  surely  find  our  way  back.  In 
the  mean  time  we  live ;  we  cannot  die  from  inactivity 
with  that  spirit  in  us.  But  we  cannot  get  that  spirit  by 
talking  about  it,  or  of  our  plain  duty,  or  by  letting  the 
pupils  talk  of  it,  or  act  in  a  small  way.  Associations 
of  school  boys,  putting  the  discipline  in  the  hands  of  the 
pupils,  boys'  congresses  and  similar  means,  are  all  good 
for  forming  character,  but  most  of  such  features  result 
in  talk  or  in  limited  activities.  It  is  an  excellent  training 
of  character  to  have  a  culprit  brought  before  a  judge  of 
his  own  class,  to  be  prosecuted  for  his  transgressions  by 
his  comrade  to  the  right,  while  his  classmate  to  the  left 
acts  as  his  defender,  but  the  fight  for  justice  then  is  after 
all  only  a  wordy  fencing  bout.  (  The  college  boys  take 
more  pride  in  winning  a  football  match  than  an  oratorical 
contest,  I  believe.  Why?  Because  youth  is  nearer  to 
physical  nature  than  to  intellectual  life.  The  individual 
repeats  in  himself  the  phylogenetic  development,  men- 
tally and  morally,  as  well  as  physically.  ^We  must  choose 
our  educational  means  to  conform  to  the  individual's 


20  Why  Do  We  Teach  Gymnastics? 

development.^  We  must  catch  his  nascent  periods.  The 
long  period  in  the  racial  development,  when  most  of  life 
was  physical  activity  of  a  large  kind,  hunting,  warfare, 
corresponds  to  a  long  period  in  the  ontogeny.  The 
interests  arising  then  must  be  cared  for  and  guided. 
If  suppressed  in  their  nascent  periods,  they  will  disap- 
pear forever.  And  these  interests  are  mighty  forces  to 
create  will  of  a  wholesouled,  overpowering  kind.  We 
cannot  afford  to  let  the  growing  tendencies  die  from 
lack  of  nutrition.  We  cannot  afford  to  let  the  fertile 
field  lie  fallow.  -It  must  be  cultivated.  And  from  it 
shall  grow  strong  will,  fine  characters,  useful  citizens, 
men  in  a  true  sense. 

;  To  supply  the  large  activity  which  I  thus  find  neces- 
sary for  character  formation  I  hold  to  be  the  true  and 
most  important  office  of  sports.  Nothing  can  equal 
them  as  agencies  for  the  development  of  the  desire  "to 
be  in  it,"  to  take  part,  to  lend  a  hand.  No  agency  exists, 
so  far  as  I  know,  which  is  so  powerful  to  develop  pres- 
ence of  mind  and  courage,  physical  courage,  in  which 
we  are  so  sadlv  deficient,  and  which  is  a  breeder  of 
moral  courage  and  right  doing.  Last  summer  some 
young  men  were  out  for  a  lark.  One  of  them,  a  nice 
young  fellow,  had  during  the  previous  winter  been 
thrown  much  with  men  not  in  the  habit  of  weighing  their 
words  so  very  carefully.  He  used  various  expletives  not 
allowed  in  the  most  select  parlors.  A  forceful  "Jack,  stop 
that !"  soon  came  from  one  of  the  others,  a  college  ath- 
lete. I  do  not  know  who  was  the  better  man  of  the  two, 
I  do  not  pit  one  against  the  other  in  Sunday-school  book 
fashion.  This  athlete  may,  for  all  I  know,  have  been  in- 
ferior to  "Jack"  in  many  respects.'  But  this  I  do  know, 
that  when  the  former  found  that  the  latter  did  not  be- 
have in  accordance  with  his  ideas  of  what  was  proper, 


Why  Do  We  Teach  Gymnastics'?  21 

he  immediately/ acted  upon  his  convictions.  That  is 
courage.  That  is  character.  Those  few  words  were  to 
me  more  significant  of  the  good  he  had  got  out  of  his 
athletic  training  than  the  whole  number  of  medals  and 
trophies  bestowed  upon  him.  Because  I  believe  that  the 
confidence  in  self,  the  desire  to  act,  the  will,  the  courage 
shown  in  these  words  of  his,  could  be  traced  back  to 
the  athletic  field.  Had  he  been  fed  simply  on  lectures 
in  ethics,  he  might  have  blushingly  withdrawn  from  the 
company  for  fear  of  being  contaminated.  Passive  virtue 
may  be  all  right  in  its  way,  but  it  is  aggressive  combative- 
ness  which  carries  the  day,  whether  for  good  or  evil.  Itj 
is  a  positive  will  we  need.  That  is  what  I  believe  prop- 
erly regulated  sports  can  give.  The  common  school 
branches  do  not  suffice.  Manual  training  is  too  one-sided 
and  circumscribed  to  suffice.  Properly  conducted  gym- 
nastics can  supply  a  great  deal  of  it.  But  not  all  of  the 
gymnastics  that  we  see  in  our  gymnasia  is  fit  for  it. 
Not  even  all  of  that  which  from  other  viewpoints  is  ex- 
cellent. Gymnastics  gains  efficiency  in  this  regard  in 
the  same  degree  that  it  approaches  the  sports.  It  is.  the 
jumping,  and  vaulting,  and  climbing,  and  tumbling,  and 
giant  swings,  and  the  like,  which  are  producers  of  this 
particular  kind  of  large  will,  the  producers  of  courage 
and  self-reliance  in  the  gymnastic  lesson.  The  arm 
stretchings  and  head  bendings  and  trunk  twistings  and 
exercises  with  dumbbells,  wands,  and  pully  weights  have 
certainly  no  more  influence  in  this  regard  than  manual 
training.  They  may  all  supplement  the  sports  and  each 
other,  but  the  former  ought  always  to  be  considered  as 
the  chief  ingredient,  when  the  question  arises  for  a  pro- 
gramme primarily  designed  for  the  promotion  of  will,| 
courage,  self-reliance. 


23 


Why  Do  We  Teach  Gymrvastics? 


X 


I  therefore  come  to  the  conckision  that  though  gym- 
nastics in  our  schools  can,  and  should  be,  so  arranged 
and  conducted  as  to  have  a  direct  and  immediate  influ- 
ence on  mind  development,  there  are  other  agencies,  in 
the  motor  training  as  well  as  outside  its  field,  which 
transcend  it  in  importance,  and  that  gymnastics  cannot 
be  successfully  defended  merely  or  mainly  because  of 
this  direct  influence.  If  we  endeavor  to  do  so  we  only 
invite  a  comparison  with  these  other  agencies  which 
cannot  but  be  detrimental  to  gymnastics.  For  training 
of  sense  perception,  manual  training  is  better ;  through 
language,  history,  mathematics,  the  natural  sciences,  we 
acquire  "a  multitude  of  conceptions  and  judgments,"  in 
comparison  with  which  those  acquired  by  gymnastics 
fade  into  insignificance;  by  all  subjects  in  the  school, 
rightly  taught,  we  train  attention  to  detail  and  devotion 
to  duty  just  as  well  as  by  gymnastics ;  by  well  regulated 
sports  we  develop  that  larger,  positive  will  of  which  I 
have  spoken  to  a  greater  extent  than  by  gymnastics  in 
the  true  sense. 

I  do  not  deny  the  direct  beneficial  effects  on  the  mind 
of  gymnastics.  Nobody  does.  The  close  inter-relation 
between  mind  and  body  is  too  well  established  to  allow 
any  Quixotic  endeavor  in  that  direction.  I  simply  wish 
to  warn  as  to  exaggerations  in  the  claims ;  that  is  all. 
Do  not  let  us  speak  of  the  direct  benefits  on  the  develop- 
ment of  the  mind  and  its  various  "faculties"  (which  the 
philosophers  no  longer  recognize  as  separate  entities) 
as  if  we  wished  to  make  the  impression  that  nothing  but 
gymnastics  is  worth  anything  as  an  educational  agency, 
and  that  the  only  or  chief  benefit  from  gymnastics  lies  in 
this  field.  For  this  is  not  true. 

In  the  preceding  paragraphs  I  have  endeavored  to 
give  reasons  for  my  opinions.   These  "reasons"  are  not 


WKy  Do  We  Teach  Gytnrvastlcs'?  33 

free  from  weakness.  I  know  it  welk  They  do  not  prove 
me  right.  But  the  question  is  not  one  susceptible  of  ob- 
jective proof.  The  data  are  lacking.  Such  data  as  we 
possess  showing  mental  development  as  a  result  of 
motor  training  in  general,  or  gymnastics  in  particular, 
do  not  help  us  materially.  The  improvement  noticed 
may  as  well  be  interpreted  to  be  the  result  of  improve- 
ment in  the  nutritive  functions  and,  consequently,  as  in- 
direct and  mediate  results.  Our  position  in  the  matter 
must  essentially  rest  upon  faith,  not  on  objective  proofs. 
And  if  the  latter  are  demanded  the  burden  certainly 
must  fall  upon  those  who  make  a  disputable  assertion, 
not  on  those  who  deny  it,  as  not  proven. 

But  in  claiming  that  certain  advocates  of  gymnastics 
take  a  too  extreme  position  when  demanding  its  recog- 
nition, because  of  supposed  direct  educational  influences, 
I  wish  to  emphasize  that  there  is  one  kind  of  education 
which  to  the  greatest  extent  perhaps  comes  directly  and 
immediately  from  motor  training,  and  more  particularly 
from  gymnastics.  But  this  education  is  not  mental  or 
moral  in-  the  Strict  sense.  It  is  decidedly  physical,  ma- 
terial,' corporeal?  I  meajL_£dLu£alicu£-ia--e€>--OJp4iHation. 
With  co-ordination  we  mean  the  harmonious  working 
together  of  a  large  number  of  muscles,  simultaneously 
or  consecutively,  for  the  execution  of  a  given  act  with 
the  least  efifort.  The  physical  basis  of  the  growing  mus- 
cular co-ordination  is  the  development  of  the  governing 
nerve  cells  wath  their  connecting  links,  and  the  habitua- 
tion of  these  cells  to  respond  in  the  same  manner,  with 
the  same  strength,  in  the  same  sequence,  when  stimuli 
of  the  same  kind  reach  them.  Muscular  co-ordination  is 
a  result  of  the  development  and  the  education  of  the 
nerve  centres.  This  comes  directly  from  repetition  of 
movements.    And  the  movements  are  regulated  by  more 


24  Why  Do  We   Teach  Gymrvastics? 

or  less  unconscious  sensory  impressions  and  judgments 
based  on  the  memory  of  previous  ones.  We  may,  of 
course,  speak  of  this  as  a  mental  development.  It  differs 
perhaps,  not  in  kind  but  in  degree,  from  what  we  usually 
denote  as  mentality.  But  the  automatism  involved  in 
complete  co-ordination  seems  to  me  to  be  just  as  closely 
related  to  the  amoebic  movements  on  the  one  hand  and 
to  such  phenomena  as  geotropism,  heliotropism  and 
chemotropism  on  the  other,  and  I  doubt  our  right  to 
speak  of  it  or  of  them  as  mental  phenomena  in  the  true 
sense.  The  difficulty,  of  course,  lies  in  the  impossibility 
to  draw  a  boundary  line  between  the  purely  physical  and 
the  purely  psychical  fields.  Such  line  does  not  exist, 
and  when  we,  for  the  sake  of  convenience,  make  an  arti- 
ficial division,  we  cannot  agree  where  to  place  the  de- 
marcation. 

But  whatever  our  viewpoint  may  be,  development  of 
co-ordination  is  a  part  of  education,  and  it  is  directly 
gained  by  motor  training.  Manual  training  and  similar 
forms  bring  about  co-ordination  to  limited  activities,  and 
in  this  result  it  approaches  training  in  manual  trades, 
though  it,  of  course,  is  more  all-sided  than  the  latter, 
which  has  its  aim  only  in  a  particular  movement  or  suc- 
cession of  movements.  Sports  of  various  kinds  are,  as 
a  rule,  more  far-reaching  in  their  results,  but  even  in 
them  the  co-ordination  becomes  more  or  less  special- 
ized. Of  all  forms  of  motor  training  gymnastics,  proper- 
ly conceived  and  carried  out,  addresses  itself  to  the  most 
all-sided  co-ordination,  and  furnishes,  therefore,  the 
most  fundamental  education  in  co-ordination.  The  im- 
portance of  its  many  sided  influence  is  to  be  found  in 
many  directions,  as,  for  instance,  in  a  general  saving  of 
energy  in  whatever  we  undertake,  in  maintenance  of 
postures,  correct  from  an  esthetic  as  well  as  from  an 


^- 


Why  Do  We  TeacK  Gyrrvnastlcs  7  25 

hygienic  viewpoint,  and  so  on.  To  give  the  fundamental 
training  to  co-ordination  I  hold  to  be  the  main  direct 
educative  function  of  gymnastics,  which  must  make 
itself  felt  in  all  forms  of  motion  applied  to  definite 
external  purpose,  be  it  play  or  work. 

With  this  I  believe  that  practically  all  is  said  on  the 
direct  educational  benefits  from  gymnastics.  But  there 
are  other  benefits  to  be  taken  into  consideration,  which 
we  gain  directly,  and  from  which  spring  indirectly  in- 
creased! power  of  sensation,  attention,  perception,  con- 
ception, volition  and  so  on.  -  . 

Man,  as  a  neuromuscular  machine,  is  the  material  to 
be  formed  by  our  education.  This  machine  is  meant  for 
energy-expenditure.  It  must  be  so  handled  by  the  edu- 
cator that  the  energy  will  be  expended  in  the  most 
profitable  manner  and  in  the  most  desirable  direction. 
The  first  condition  for  this  is  that  it  shall  be  kept  in  good 
repair.  The  repair  is  made  by  a  set  of  organs  which  sup- 
ply not  only  the  material  with  which  to  compensate  the 
loss  of  substance,  but  which  also  supply  the  potential  en- 
ergy which  the  machine  changes  into  kinetic  form.  The 
very  first  condition  for  success  in  our  educajtii^al  pur- 
pose is  that  the  organs  furnishing  and  distributing  po- 
tential energy,  and  those  which  are  to  remove  the  refuse, 
be  kept  in  good  repair.  Behind  education  this  necessary 
condition  stands,  namely,  that  the  organs  of  digestion, 
circulation,  respiration,  excretion  and  so  on  be  kept 
in  a  high  degree  of  health  and  regulated  in  such  a  man- 
ner as  to  work  in  harmony  with  each  other  and  with  the 
neuromuscular  system,/  The  knov/ledge  of  the  relation 
between  a  healthy  mind  and  a  healthy  body  has  come 
down  to  us  from  the  ancients.  But  it  is  only  in  our  own 
day  that  it  has  been  put  to  the  test  by  actual  measure- 
ments ;  and  while  we  formerly  considered  in  a  general 


26  WKy  Do  We  Teach  Gymnastics? 

way  physical  health  and  strength,  i.  e.,  good  nutrition,  as 
necessary  for  mental  health  and  strength,  we  now  have 
at  our  disposal  at  least  some  results  of  investigations 
showing  definitely  that  mental  ability  corresponds  close- 
ly to  the  height  and  weight  of  the  individual.    As  a  pre- 
liminary to  our  education,  then,  we  must  consider  it  our 
duty  to  maintain  the  nutrition  at  as  high  a  level  as  pos- 
sible.   But  the  actions  of  the  organs  involved  are  not,  to 
any  great  extent  at  least,  under  the  direct  influence  of 
our  will.    Hence  we  cannot  properly  speak  of  their  edu- 
cation, a  term  that  always  presupposes  volition.     Any 
influence  which  we  may  bring  to  bear  upon  them  in  an 
indirect  way  lies  outside  of  the  educational  field,  strictly 
speaking.     We  call  such  influences  hygienic  when  they 
are  suitable  to  maintain  and  develop  a  normal  nutritive 
function,   and   therapeutic   when   they   are   effective   in 
restoring  to  its  normal  state  a  deranged  function,  ill 
adjusted  to  the  conditions  of  life.  These  questions,  then, 
confront  us  quite  naturally  in  this  connection :    Has  the 
school,  besides  its  direct  educational  duties,  any  obliga- 
tion to  fulfill  as  to  hygiene  and  therapy?  If  so,  do  any  of 
these  oyigations  fall  to  the  special  lot  of  the  teacher  of 
gymnastics  ?    And  how  extensive  are  these  obligations  ? 
I  imagine  that  there  is  unanimity  of  opinion  regard- 
ing the  responsibility  of  the  school  to  the  extent  that 
everybody  recognizes  it  as  a  perfectly  legitimate  demand 
that  the  health  of  the  pupil  must  not  deteriorate  from 
any  cause  over  which  the  school  has  control.     This  de- 
mand is  even  more  imperative  than  that  for  positive  edu- 
cational results.   Whatever  failures  the  school  may  show 
in  the  latter,  it  must  not  fail  in  doing  everything  in  its 
power  to  return  the  pupil  to  the  parental  home  in  as 
healthy    condition    as    at    matriculation.     Satisfactory 
drainage,  good  ventilation,  proper  furniture,  suitable  al- 


Why  Do  We  Teach'Gymrvastlcs!?  27 

ternation  between  work  and  rest,  a  judicious  choice  of 
studies  according  to  the  abilities  of  the  pupil,  a  presenta- 
tion corresponding  to  his  development,  and  hundreds  of 
other  factors  are  to  be  given  due  consideration.  The 
duty  of  the  gymnastic  teacher  in  this  general  school 
hygiene  is  just  as  pressing  as  that  of  any  other  teacher, 
but  no  more  so.  That  he,  sometimes  and  somewhere, 
may  take  upon  himself  to  appear  as  a  special  advocate 
of  these  matters  is  as  natural  as  the  fact  that  there  are 
numerous  teachers  and  directors  who  do  not  feel  called 
upon  to  take  a  particularly  active  part  in  that  kind  of 
work.  If  he  does  so,  he  ought  to  be  commended,  not 
sneered  at  as  posing  for  an  expert  in  school  hygiene.  He 
only  fulfills  a  duty  as  he  sees  it,  because  there  is  nobody 
else  to  do  it.  But  this  duty  is  a  general  one,  a  duty 
which  falls  to  him  as  an  olBcial  of  the  school,  or  as  a 
citizen,  if  you  please,  not  as  a  teacher  of  gymnastics.  In 
the  latter  capacity  he  must  see  to  it  that  in  his  particular 
part  of  the  school  building  conditions  are  the  best  pos- 
sible from  a  hygienic  viewpoint,  that  nothing  shall  be 
used  there  which  can  be  definitely  shown  to  be  detri- 
mental to  the  general  health  of  the  pupil  or  prejudicial 
to  any  organ  or  function.  Hygienic  principles  must,  as 
Dr.  Arnold  says,  serve  us  as  contra-indications.  They 
shall  save  us  from  using  injurious  movements  as  exer- 
cises. This  is  so  imperative  that  to  it  everything  else  must 
yield.  Thus  we  have  here  the  first  guide  for  our  gym- 
nastic selection.  If  any  movement,  combination  of 
movements,  or  sequence  of  movements  be  found  to  have 
a  definite  deleterious  influence  upon  the  pupil  from  a 
hygienic  point  of  view  it  must  be  ruthlessly  discarded, 
be  its  educational  value  great  or  small.  Unhygienic 
forms  must  be  rigorously  excluded,  but  the  residue  left 
after  such  a  sifting  process  may  be  utiHzed,  and  if  it  be 


28  Why  Do  We  Teach  Gymrvastics? 

utilized  it  must  be  applied  strictly  according  to  peda- 
gogic principles.  This  is  a  statement  to  which  I  believe 
all  will  agree,  whatever  the  system  to  which  they  owe 
allegiance.  But  all  difficulties  are  not  thereby  swept 
aside.  Even  if  the  statement  is  simple  and  acceptable 
to  all  in  the  form  given,  it  contains  at  least  two  points 
out  of  which  disagreements  may  arise,  viz.,  the  presup- 
position that  movements  exist  which  may  work  injury 
to  the  system;  and  even  if  this  be  accepted  as  true  we 
may  still  differ  as  to  which  movements  are  injurious  and 
which  not.  As  is  well  known,  the  Swedish  gymnasts 
have  always  contended  for  the  exclusion  of  certain 
movements,  as  being  injurious.  Dr.  Arnold,  represent- 
ing the  German  school,  takes  the  same  ground.  The 
apostles  of  the  all-possibility  principle  must,  of  course, 
have  denied  the  possibility  of  injury  resulting  from  any 
movements  whatsoever,  if  they  meant  anything  at  all 
by  their  assertion  that  "everything  possible  is  rational." 
But  in  our  day  advocates  of  this  principle  are  rare  in- 
deed. Dr.  Geo.  W.  Fitz  probably  comes  as  near  to  up- 
holding this  defunct  principle  as  any  one.  He  is  on  rec- 
ord as  believing  that  "probably  no  exercise  is  really 
harmful,'"  though  he  distinguishes  between  such  exer- 
cises as  are  best  and  such  as  are  not  so  good.  The  use 
of  exercises  "not  so  good"  is,  of  course,  undesirable  for 
this  reason,  if  for  nothing  else,  that  they  take  time  away 
from  those  which  are  best.  But  without  dwelling  upon 
that  aspect  of  the  question,  it  may  perhaps  be  well,  in 
view  of  the  fact  that  some  may  be  found  who  do  not 
give  unequivocal  assent  to  the  proposition  that  certain 
exercises  are  injurious,  to  inquire  into  the  truth  of  the 
matter. 


1.    Proceedings  of  the  Am.   Ass.  for  the  Adv.   of  Phys.   Educ, 
at  its  seventh  annual  meeting,  p.   204. 


Why  Do  We  Teach  Gynrvrvastlcs?  29 

Let  us  then  note  that  Dr.  Fitz  docs  not  say  that 
probably  no  movement  is  really  harmful.  He  uses  the 
expression  "exercise."  But  what  does  he  mean  by  "ex- 
ercise" in  this  connection?  If  he  means  "movements  se- 
lected as  regard  to  time  and  space  so  as  to  correspond 
to  the  conditions  and  needs  of  the  organism"  there  is,  of 
course,  nothing  to  say  against  it,  because  that  means 
that  the  movements  so  selected  are  not  only  non-injuri- 
ous, but  beneficial.  But  he  certainly  cannot  mean  that. 
It  would  be  nonsensical.  We  have  no  right  to  believe 
that  he  would  be  guilty  of  such  tautology.  Apparently 
he  means  that  among  the  postures  and  movements 
which  are  habitually  used  by  gymnastic  teachers  as  exer- 
cises there  is  probably  none  which  is  really  harmful.  I 
cannot  bring  myself  to  the  belief  that  he  takes  to-day 
the  same  position  that  DuBois  Reymond  took  forty 
years  ago,  viz.,  that  any  possible  movement  is  non-in- 
jurious and  may  properly  be  used  as  an  exercise.  Such 
a  position  would  be  so  absolutely  untenable  that  it 
would  not  be  defended  by  anybody  with  the  slightest 
knowledge  of  gymnastics.  He  does  mean — let  us  at 
least  suppose  so — that  intuition,  which  we  all  use  more 
or  less  for  guidance  in  our  selection,  in  default  of  knowl- 
edge, practically  never  leads  us  astray,  but  that  we  all 
and  each  of  us  may  well  look  with  pride  on  our  work 
and  say :  Behold,  it  is  all  very  good ! 

I  am  of  a  different  opinion.  I  believe  that  practical- 
ly every  lesson,  even  by  the  very  best  teachers,  contains 
numerous  forms  which  should  be  excluded  as  really 
harmful,  and  which  will  be  excluded  with  growing 
knowledge. 

Every  one,  of  course,  recognizes  that  practically 
every  movement  may  become  really  harmful  if  its  dura- 
tion or  the  energy  with  which  it  is  executed  exceeds  a 


30  Why  Do  W©  Teach  Gymrvastics? 

certain  limit.  Where  this  limit  is  to  be  placed  is  a  diffi- 
cult and  far-reaching  problem,  but  all  of  us  ought  to 
admit  that  the  limit  is  not  infrequently  passed  in  our 
gymnasia.  Every  one  recognizes,  equally  as  a  matter  of 
course,  that  no  movement,  whatever  its  form,  is  really 
harmful  if  executed  once,  twice,  or  at  rare  intervals. 
But  this  does  not  prove  Dr.  Fitz  to  be  right.  "Exercise" 
does  not  imply  the  occasional  performance  of  a  move- 
ment. It  means  systematic  and  persistent  practice.  And 
therefore  it  is  inconceivable  to  me  how  Dr.  Fitz  can 
maintain  that  no  "exercise"  is  "really  harmful." 

At  another  place,^  Dr.  Fitz  undertakes  "a  discussion 
of  the  claims  of  Swedish  gymnastics,"  as  he  understands 
them,  and  endeavors  to  refute  a  majority  of  them.  In 
the  proper  connection  I  shall  try  to  show  to  what  ex- 
tent he  fails  to  do  so.  Here  I  take  up  the  matter  only 
to  give  an  idea  how  far  this  author  differs  from  the 
Swedish  gymnasts  in  one  particular  point,  viz.,  the  ex- 
istence of  injurious  movements.  According  to  him,  the 
Swedes  claim  that  "movements  for  exercises  must  be 
non-injurious,  that  is,  must  not  contract  chest  or  deform 
body,  cause  faulty  positions.  ..."  I  do  not  know  the 
exact  place  in  the  works  referred  to  by  him  where  this 
claim  is  made,  but  it  is  not  necessary  to  compare  it  with 
the  original  statement,  because  I  am  sure  that  every 
Swedish  gymnast  is  perfectly  willing  to  subscribe  to  it 
in  the  form  given  by  Dr.  Fitz,  provided  no  other  mean- 
ing be  read  into  these  words  than  common  sense  dic- 
tates. It  is  true  that  the  words  quoted  may,  if  we  de- 
sire, for  the  sake  of  mere  argument,  be  twisted  into  a 
sweeping  assertion  that  a  movement  in  order  to  be  non- 
injurious  must  not,  even  for  the  briefest  moment,  cause 


1.    Proceedings  and  Papers  of  the  Sargent  Normal  School  Asso- 
ciation.   Season  of  1899-1900. 


WKy  Do  Wo  Teach  Gyrrvrvastics?  31 

a  faulty  attitude  or  a  depression  of  the  ribs.  But  I  do 
not  see  why  such  asininity  shall  necessarily  be  ascribed 
to  the  Swedish  gymnasts.  Why  may  they  not  be  con- 
sidered as  men  of  average  intelligence,  who  in  their  turn 
presuppose  average  intelligence  in  their  readers,  who 
choose  their  words  accordingly,  and  who  expect  to  have 
them  scrutinized  by  fair-minded  critics,  not  by  those  who 
delight  in  painting  Beelzebub  on  the  wall  for  the  pleas- 
ure of  flogging  him  ?  Dr.  Fitz  says  :  "We  have  to  con- 
sider that  movements  which  compress  the  chest  or  which 
bring  about  deforming  postures,  if  they  merely  carry 
the  ribs  or  spine  through  their  normal  range  of  move- 
ments, tend  only  to  keep  these  parts  flexible,  provided 
that  the  movements  are  balanced  by  full  movements  on 
the  opposite  side  or  in  the  opposite  direction.  The  es- 
sential deforming  postures  to  be  avoided  are  those 
habitual  postures  which  remain  uncorrected."  In  put- 
ting this  statement  in  opposition  to  the  claim  of  the 
Swedes,  he  thus  intimates  that  the  two  are  contradic- 
tory. But  is  it  necessary  for  the  understanding  of  the 
unbiased  reader  that  we  insert  in  the  claim  some  modify- 
ing words,  to  say  that  we  must  not  "permanently,  re- 
peatedly, or  for  long  periods  compress  the  chest?"  Is 
not  that  meaning  evident?  I  have  said  above  that  "no 
movement,  whatever  its  form  (including  consequently 
those  by  which  the  chest  is  compressed !),  is  really  harm- 
ful if  executed  once,  twice,  or  at  rare  intervals."  And 
this  is  the  position  of  all  Swedes.  There  is  nothing  in 
Dr.  Fitz's  statement  which  refutes  anything  said  or 
written  by  Swedish  gymnasts,  to  my  knowledge.  It  is,  all 
of  it,  good  gymnastic  doctrine  as  taught  by  them.  That 
is — on  the  face  of  it.  To  the  thoughts  implied,  to  the 
conclusions  which  might  be  drawn,  and  which  are  drawn, 
objections  can   and  must  be  taken.    They  do  not  claim 


33  WKy  Do  We  Teach  Gymnastics? 

that  in  itself  it  is  injurious  to  depress  the  ribs  or  to  flex 
the  spine  in  any  direction  under  the  proviso  made  by 
Dr.  Fitz.  Like  him,  they  beHeve  that  such  movements 
tend  to  keep  the  parts  flexible.  Like  him,  they  believe 
that  these  movements  should  be  counteracted  by  move- 
ments in  the  opposite  direction.  They  believe,  however, 
that  the  daily  work  outside  of  the  gymnasium  is  to  a 
great  extent  such  as  to  cause  costal  depression.  They 
believe  that  the  effects  of  this  work  are  noticeable  in  the 
general  appearance  of  the  pupils.  They  believe  that  this 
is  one  of  the  habitual  postures  which  remain  uncor- 
rected. They  believe  that,  for  the  average  individual, 
there  is  no  need  of  exercising  in  order  to  increase  the 
amplitude  of  the  ribs  downward,  the  daily  work  taking 
ample  care  of  that.  They  believe  that  the  time  given  up 
to  gymnastics  in  our  schools  is  so  brief  that  no  time 
should  be  given  to  exercises  which  compress  the  chest, 
but  in  all  exercises  attention  should  be  paid  to  things 
more  necessary.  Dr.  Fitz  says  that  the  chest  compres- 
sors must  be  counterbalanced  by  other  movements.  Very 
well !  Counteract  the  chest  compressors  of  daily  life,  but 
do  not  bring  in  any  new  ones  which  again  need  to  be 
counteracted. 

Personally,  I  further  claim  that  during  a  long  his- 
torical period  of  gymnastic  development  this  gymnastic 
doctrine  was  overlooked,  except  by  the  pupils  of  Ling. 
I  claim  that  the  old  German  Turner  paid  little  or  no 
heed  to  it.  I  claim  that  it  was  Rothstein's  warfare 
against  the  German  methods  which  was  the  most  potent 
factor  in  introducing  good  form  in  the  German  gym- 
nasia, thereby  abolishing  a  whole  series  of  "really  harm- 
ful" movements.  I  claim  that  it  is  the  direct  influence  of 
the  Swedes  in  this  country  and  their  indirect  influence 
through  the  Germans  which  has  made  possible  the  ac- 


WKy  Do  We  Teach  Gyrrv nasties  7 


33 


ceptance  by  the  Americans  of  the  proviso  given  by  Dr. 
Fitz,  that  the  movements  must  be  "balanced  by  full 
movements  on  the  opposite  side  or  in  the  opposite  di- 
rection." I  claim  that  the  fact  that  everybody  now 
admits  these  chest  compressors  to  be  injurious  with- 
out counteraction  is  due  to  the  activity  of  the 
Swedes.  I  thus  claim  it  as  a  particularly  Swedish  doc- 
trine which  Dr.  Fitz  and  a  host  of  others  have  been 
forced  to  accept  after  a  vain  struggle  of  nearly  a  hun- 
dred years.  I  claim  that  anyone  who  endeavors  to  make 
it  appear  that  this  statement  is  directed  against  the 
Swedish  gymnasts  shows  a  really  sublime  ignorance  of 
the  historical  development  of  the  subject. 

The  Swedes,  in  general,  further  claim  that  even  in 
our  day,  notwithstanding  the  acceptance  in  words  of 
this  genuine  Swedish  doctrine,  a  great  deal  of  the  gym- 
nastic practice  contradicts  it.  Which  shows  that  the 
love  expressed  for  the  doctrine  is  only  skin  deep  and 
has  not  entered  into  the  very  souls  of  our  gymnasts.  This 
statement  of  course  can  not  be  proven  by  mere  words. 
The  proofs  must  be  gathered  on  the  floor.  But  go  into 
a  gymnasium,  and  you  will  see  small  children  bending 
their  heads  and  necks  forward  as  an  exercise,  when  they 
are  doing  that  same  deforming  exercise  hundreds  of 
times  in  their  schoolrooms,  their  homes,  and  on  the  play- 
ground. You  may  see  the  same  little  tots  stretching 
their  arms  forward  as  an  exercise,  before  they  have 
eained  such  control  of  their  shoulder  girdles  as  to  be 
able  to  prevent  the  shoulder-blades  to  get  out  of  their 
proper  places.  You  may  see  a  man  lying  on  his  back 
on  the  floor  without  support  for  his  feet  trying  to  raise 
his  body,  thereby  necessitating  compression  of  the  chest 
as  an  exercise.  You  may  see  boys  vying  with  each  other 
in  chinning,  every  one  of  them  compressing  his  chest 


34  WKy  Do  We  Teach  Gymrvastics  7 

instead  of  expanding  it,  because  it  is  simply  a  ques- 
tion of  setting  a  record  in  the  number  of  times  the  poor 
fellows  can  raise  themselves.  Nobody  will  for  a  mo- 
ment contend  that  it  is  "really  harmful"  to  fold  the  arms 
behind  the  back,  but  everybody  with  a  vestige  of  sense 
would  nowadays  object  strenuously  to  the  habits  of 
some  years  ago  of  demanding  that  the  school  children 
should  maintain  that  posture  during  recitations.  And 
I  am  sorry  to  say  that  the  habit  still  prevails  here  and 
there  even  in  our  best  school  systems.  Nobody  claims 
that  it  is  "really  harmful"  to  place  a  wand  behind  the 
shoulders  and  bend  forward  to  the  position  shown  in 
Fig.  1.  But  I  for  one  believe  sincerely  not  only  that  no 
need  of  the  organism  is  served,  but  that  it  is  "really 
harmful"  to  make  sixteen  such  movements  in  sequence 
in  one  lesson,  as  Mr.  Reuter  recommends  in  his  "Wand 
Exercises,"'  from  which  the  figure  is  borrowed.  I  be- 
lieve it  is  "really  harmful"  because  it  is  conducive  to  bad 
posture.  Nobody  will  maintain  that  any  one  of  the  pos- 
tures or  movements  depicted  by  Mr.  Ballin"  and  of 
which  a  few  examples  are  here  reproduced,  as  figures  2, 
3,  4,  5  and  6,  is  "really  harmful"  if  taken  occasionally, 
but  deliberately  to  practise  them  as  exercises  I  hold  to  be 
decidedly  detrimental  to  the  proper  development  of  the 
body. 

I  believe  it  will  be  well  to  quote  from  Mr.  Ballin's 
book  in  order  that  we  understand  the  position  taken  by 
him  and  many  others.     He  says  : 

"Now,  every  logical  thinker  will  be  far  from  demand- 
ing that  the  school  should  be  an  orthopaedic  institu- 
tion.  A  system,  which   provides  for  exercises   on  the 


1.  Gymnastics.    A  textbook  of  the  German-American  system  of 
gymnastics.     Edited  by  W.  A.   Steelier.    Boston,  1896,  p.  69. 

2.  Hans    Ballin:     Gymnastics   in    the    schoolroom.     Erie,    Penn. 
1891. 


Fig.  1 


Fig.  3 


^ 

^ 

B^ 

^^/jHwji 

flB 

^^^^H^^ft  iT' 

^[[ 

^^^^^^^■-  -  a:"' 

^2M'\ 

rf^^jBBHB 

^-^^m.  ^n 

■^M?.'  ^^«fiPf*»si^^is —  \:^ 

^--ASiii^ 

?--'e'^^^»i"-3 

.H.^T^ 

HBHSbBRMB^^  X"-''''''i<cA>')^ja^*« . 

Fig.  3 


Fig.  4 


Fig.  5 


Fig.  G 


;WKy  Do  We  Teach  Gymnastics?  35 

sanitary  principle  only,  is  of  injury  in  the  schoolroom, 
and  its  advocates  have  never  been  aware  of  the  many 
educational  demands  necessary  in  the  instruction  of 
physical  culture.  Though  exclusive  orthopaedic  exer- 
cises, as  represented  at  present  by  some  so-called  sys- 
tems, should  unmercifully  be  expelled  from  the  school- 
room, yet  provision  should  be  made  to  not  instruct  the 
pupil  intellectually  at  the  expense  of  his  health,  nor 
weaken  him  by  the  exercise  of  the  necessary  discipline. 
Health,  by  the  practice  of  bodily  training,  shall  rather  be 
maintained  than  restored." 

There  is  nothing  in  these  words  to  which  anybody 
can  take  exception.  There  is  no  "so-called  system" 
which  uses  "exclusive  orthopaedic  exercises,"  -but  if 
there  were,  all  would  agree  with  the  author  that  they 
should  "unmercifully  be  expelled  from  the  schoolroom." 
The  author  does  not  mention  any  system,  though  he,  of 
course,  means  the  Swedish,  which  he  thinks  "provides 
for  exercises  on  the  sanitary  principle  only,"  and  the 
advocates  of  which,  he  thinks,  "have  never  been  aware 
of  the  many  educational  demands  necessary  in  the  in- 
struction of  physical  culture."  All  Swedes  agree  with 
Mr.  Ballin's  words.  None  of  them  will  agree  to  his 
thoughts  as  manifested  by  his  book.  They  claim  that 
such  exercises  as  those  given  in  the  reproduced  pictures 
do  not  "maintain  health."  They  breed  disease.  They 
are  "of  injury  in  a  schoolroom."  They  must  "unmerci- 
fully be  expelled."  They  are  examples  of  "really  harm- 
ful" exercises,  in  spite  of  Dr.  Fitz's  contention  that  no 
such  exist.  They  interfere  with  the  normal  functions  of 
the  body.  They  create  deformities.  They  are  beautiful  ex- 
amples of  what  rational  gymnastics  ought  not  to  be.  To 
bar  them  out  and  to  substitute  others  which  better  assist 
the  normal  growth  and  development  of  the  pupils,  is  not 


36  WKy  Do  We  Teach  Gyrrvrvastics? 

to  use  "exclusive  orthopaedic  exercises."  It  is  sim- 
ply to  help  in  the  maintenance  of  health,  which  Mr. 
Ballin  says  is  his  object,  and  which  certainly  ought  to  be 
the  object  of  every  teacher. 

Perhaps  some  will  claim  that  the  pictures  do  not  rep- 
resent Mr.  Ballin's  ideas  of  how  the  exercises  should  be 
executed,  that  he  himself  would  be  the  first  one  to  object 
to  the  erroneous  forms  which  appear  in  such  large  num- 
ber in  his  book,  and  of  which  the  reproduced  pictures  are 
only  examples,  and,  further,  that  it  is  merely  a  fault- 
finding propensity  of  the  present  writer  which  finds  its 
expression  in  such  criticism  as  this.  But  such  errors 
are  altogether  too  common,  not  only  in  the  numerous 
books  published,  but  in  the  schoolroom  and  the  gym- 
nasia, to  permit  us  to  think  that  they  depend  merely 
or  to  a  great  extent  upon  the  difficulties  which  always 
meet  us  when  we  wish  to  secure  absolutely  correct  pict- 
ures. And  the  author  in  question,  himself,  claims  that 
"the  great  advantage  of  this  book  over  all  other  books 
of  the  same  character  is  that  the  many  illustrations  do 
away  with  long  explanations,"  while  nowhere  does  he 
call  attention  to  possible  errors  in  these  illustrations. 
He  allows  and  encourages  the  public  school  teachers, 
for  whom  the  book  is  intended,  and  who  have  no  tech- 
nical knowledge,  to  draw  their  inspiration  from  these 
pictures.  It  seems,  therefore,  as  if  Mr.  Ballin,  who  at 
the  time  had  the  responsibility  for  the  gymnastics  in  a 
public  school  system,  was  perfectly  satisfied  with  these 
forms,  i.  e.,  that  he  could  not  distinguish  between  a 
beneficial  and  a  "really  harmful"  movement. 

The  short  meaning  of  this  long  discussion,  then,  is 
that  there  exist  "exercises"  which  are  really  harmful, 
and  that  hygienic  principles  must  serve  us  as  guides  in 
our  selection,  as  contra-indications  of  what  not  to  use. 


WKy  Do  We  Teach  Gymrvastlcs? 


37 


The  criticism  is  frequently  made  against  the  Swed- 
ish system  of  gymnastics  that  its  advocates  conjure  up 
imaginary  dangers,  that  they  make  their  selection  with 
such  anxious  care  that  their  work  becomes  a  mere  tis- 
sue of  formalism  and  pedantry,  that  it  becomes  poverty- 
stricken,  that  there  is  nothing  left  for  the  active  child  or 
youth  to  work  on.  Here  is  not  the  place  to  take  up 
these  charges.  They  are  only  brought  forth  in  this  con- 
nection to  emphasize  the  fact  that  to  the  Swedes 
hygienic  principles  are  of  great  value  as  contra-indica- 
tions.  The  statement  regarding  chest  depression  is  only 
an  example.  Whether  the  application  of  hygienic  prin- 
ciples in  this  particular  instance,  or  generally,  when 
there  is  question  of  selection  to  guard  against  injurious 
exercises,  is  right  or  wrong,  must  be  left  to  each  indi- 
vidual teacher  to  decide  for  himself. 

But  the  Swedish  school  of  gymnastics  claims  that 
hygienic  principles  shall  serve,  if  possible,  a  more  impor- 
tant role  than  merely  the  negative  one  of  guarding 
against  injuries  which  may  be  contracted  within  the 
walls  of  the  gymnasium  as  an  immediate  result  of  the 
exercises  being  composed  of  "really  harmful"  move- 
ments. Education  having  for  its  purpose  to  make  the 
most  of  what  there  is  in  man,  to  draw  out  his  powers, 
to  develop  them  for  activity  in  life,  it  would  indeed  be 
well  if  we  had  it  in  our  power  as  teachers  to  guard  him 
also  against  such  evil  influences  which  in  the  form  of 
unsanitary  and  unhygienic  conditions  meet  him  outside 
the  gymnasium,  by  increasing  his  powers  of  resistance, 
his  vigor,  by  increasing  the  powers  of  the  organs  serving 
the  various  nutritive  functions.  The  teacher  of  Latin 
and  mathematics,  history  and  music  can  do  little  or 
nothing  in  that  direction.  His  work  is  mainly  negative 
so  far  as  hygiene  is  concerned.    The  gymnastic  teacher, 


38  WKy  Do  We  Teach  Gymnastics? 

however,  has  at  his  disposal  a  hygienic  agency  which 
can  make  itself  felt  outside  the  gymnasium.  Therefore, 
and  because  health  precedes  education  in  importance,  it 
is  the  basic  dogma  of  tlie  Swedish  gymnasts  that  no 
system  of  gymnastics  which  does  not  strive  for  the  very 
highest  degree  of  health  can  be  called  a  rational  one,  or 
have  any  claim  to  recognition.  They  believe,  and  strive 
to  make  their  belief  live  in  their  practice,  according  to 
their  ability,  that  we  have  no  right  to  limit  ourselves  to 
the  mere  passive  care  which  consists  in  applying 
hygienic  principles  merely  or  mainly  as  contra-indica- 
tions  against  what  not  to  do,  but  shall  use  them  also  to 
the  extent  of  our  powers  in  a  more  active  manner  as 
indications  of  what  to  do.  This,  they  claim,  is  the  only 
correct  foundation  upon  which  a  system  of  gymnastics 
for  any  civilized  people  can  and  shall  be  built. 

Is  this  an  erroneous  conception  of  the  purpose  of 
gymnastics  in  our  educational  institutions?  I  ask  Dr. 
Edward  M.  Hartwell,  whom  I  suppose  we  all  recognize 
as  one  of  the  foremost  students  of  gymnastic  questions, 
and  he  answers :  "The  ends  of  exercise  may  be  charac- 
terized, in  a  general  way,  as  first,  the  promotion  of 
health,  and  second,  the  formation  of  proper  habits  of 
action.'"  I  ask  Dr.  Wm.  T.  Harris,  United  States 
Commissioner  of  Education,  and  surely  one  of  our  lead- 
ing pedagogues,  and  from  him  come  the  words :  "Physi- 
cal training,  I  take  it,  is  a  part  of  the  subject  of 
hygiene," '  and  again,  "The  student  now  studies  this 
problem  broadly,  and  focuses  his  attention  on  this  rela- 
tion of  the  voluntary  to  the  involuntary,  and  tries  to  dis- 
cover whereby  the  vital  organs, — the  lungs,  the  heart, 
the  stomach,  all  the  digestive  organs,  the  kidneys, — in 


1.  American  Physical  Education  Review.     Vol.  II.,  p.  140. 

2.  Report  of  the  Physical  Training  Conference  in  Boston,  1889, 
p.  1. 


WKy  Do  We  Teach  Gymnastics  7  39 

short,  how  all  the  functions  that  are  involuntary  in  their 
action  may  be  assisted  and  influenced  by  voluntary  ac- 
tion and  motion.'"  I  ask  the  pedagogues  and  school 
officials  who  have  been  instrumental  in  introducing 
physical  training  into  our  school  systems  for  the  rea- 
sons moving  them.  I  ask  the  parents  what  they  be- 
lieve to  be  the  benefits  to  be  derived  from  school  gym- 
nastics. I  ask  the  teachers  of  gymnastics  themselves 
what  they  are  trying  to  gain  by  their  work.  From  prac- 
tically all  of  them  comes  the  answer,  plain,  strong,  unani- 
mous, unequivocal :  "We  want  to  preserve  the  health 
of  our  pupils.  We  want  to  maintain  and  increase  their 
vitality.  We  want  to  preserve  them  from  the  physical 
deterioration  which  so  often  follows  sedentary  school 
life.  We  want  to  keep  the  color  in  their  cheeks,  the  elas- 
ticity in  their  steps,  the  straightness  in  their  backs,  all  of 
which  the  school  life  threatens  to  abolish."  That  is  the 
purpose  of  gymnastics.  That  is  the  aim  we  seek.  That 
is  the  object  for  which  we  work.  Not  exclusively,  to  be 
sure,  but  so  overwhelmingly  important,  when  compared 
with  any  other,  that  we  may  well  speak  of  the  latter  as 
mere  extras. 

Would  that  each  individual  teacher  of  gymnastics 
might  ask  himself  earnestly  for  what  purpose  he  works. 
I  am  sure  that  the  great  majority,  whatever  the  system 
according  to  which  they  frame  their  exercises,  will  agree 
with  me  that  they  seek  primarily  and  directly  the 
health  of  their  pupils,  that  the  various  mental  faculties 
can  be  and  are  favorably  influenced  directly  by  their 
physical  work,  but  that  the  main  benefits  accruing  to 
the  intellectual  and  moral  life  of  the  pupils  are  gained 
indirectly  as  a  result  of  their  increased  health  and  vi- 
tality." 

1.    Loc.  cit.,  p.  3. 


40  WKy  Do  We  Teach  Gymnastics? 

But  if  there  is  such  a  consensus  of  opinion  as  to  the 
main  object  of  the  gymnastic  instruction,  and  I  beheve 
there  is,  we  might  perhaps  take  it  for  granted  that  this 
is  the  object  we  ought  to  seek.  I  beheve  we  could  do  so, 
were  it  not  for  the  fact  that  of  late  years  a  few  authors 
with  influential  names  have  appeared  who  have  pro- 
claimed, more  or  less  distinctly,  that  gymnastics  in 
our  schools  is  not  primarily  or  mainly  for  hygienic  pur- 
poses; that  it  has  the  same  essential  purpose  as  other 
branches,  Latin,  mathematics,  history,  etc.,  viz. :  directly 
and  immediately  to  be  a  lever  for  increasing  the  mental 
powers.  The  foremost  of  these  men  are  Germans,  Dr. 
E.  H.  Arnold  and  Dr.  Henry  Hartung.  And  it  is  the 
same  thought  which  is  detected  in  Mr.  Ballin's  words, 
quoted  a  couple  of  pages  back. 

A  few  words  of  history  here.  Upon  the  crushing  of 
the  revolution  of  1848,  a  large  number  of  German  Tur- 
ner, who  had  served  the  cause  of  liberty  in  accordance 
with  the  principles  inherited  from  the  days  of  Jahn,  came 
to  the  United  States,  and,  with  the  accession  of  other 
arrivals,  founded  here  Turnvereine,  in  which  they  per- 
petuated their  exercises,  physical  and  mental,  and  which 
they  made  centra  of  German  language  and  German 
habits.  Here  and  there  a  German  was  called  to  take 
charge  of  the  physical  training  in  educational  institu- 
tions, but  being  perhaps  somewhat  clannish,  they  kept 
mainly  to  themselves  and  had  no  great  direct  and  per- 
sonal influence  upon  American  gymnastics,  which,  how- 
ever, in  an  indirect  manner,  was  enriched  by  a  large 
number  of  gymnastic  forms,  not  used  here  till  they  were 
seen  practised  by  the  Germans.  About  1880  fresh  winds 
were  beginning  to  blow  among  the  Americans.  Physical 
training  as  an  integral  part  of  the  course  of  instruction 
for  the  public  schools  was  being  agitated  as  never  be- 


WKy  Do  We  Teach  Gymnastics?  41 

fore.  The  Germans  were,  of  course,  interested  in  this 
matter  and  assisted  its  progress.  During  this  period  of 
budding  Hfe  there  arrived  in  the  country  two  Swedish 
gymnasts.  Posse  and  Enebuske.  They  immediately 
threw  themselves  into  the  fight.  They  worked  with  all 
their  might  to  convince  Americans  that  the  system  of 
Swedish  gymnastics  was  the  one  which  should  be 
adopted  in  this  country.  Nothing  could  have  been  more 
suitable  to  stir  the  Germans  into  life.  It  behooved  them 
now  not  only  to  help  in  the  good  work  of  introducing 
physical  training  into  the  schools,  but  to  prevent  if  pos- 
sible the  introduction  of  a  sham,  a  system,  which,  many 
years  before,  had  been  proven  false  in  Germany,  which 
had  unceremoniously  been  killed  by  Du  Bois  Reymond 
and  Virchow,  but  which  now  rose  as  a  ghost  from  times 
past.  And  thus  we  had,  at  all  the  meetings  of  gym- 
nastic teachers,  inevitable  discussions  regarding  the 
merits  and  demerits  of  the  respective  systems.  These 
discussions,  of  course,  led  to  no  result.  The  Americans 
listened  to  them,  took  part  in  them,  observed  the  prac- 
tical demonstrations.  A  few  of  them  became  converts 
to  one  system  or  the  other.  The  great  majority,  how- 
ever, considered  that  neither  party  was  in  possession  of 
the  whole  truth,  and  that  a  system  for  America  could  be 
founded  by  borrowing  ideas  and  gymnastic  forms  from 
both  and  modeling  them  into  a  whole,  held  together  by 
new  ideas  born  of  the  study  of  the  physiological  and 
psychical  development  of  the  child.  A  conference  of 
physical  directors  was  held  under  the  auspices  of  the  Y. 
M.  C.  A.  in  1891.  A  report  of  this  was  published  in  the 
"Physical  Education,"  a  monthly  edited  by  Dr.  Luther 
Gulick.  In  this  report  acknowledgment  was  made  to 
both  the  Swedish  and  the  German  system.  Mr.  Wm. 
Stecher,  in  behalf  of  the  organization  of  German  gym- 


42  WKy  Do  We  Teach  Gymnastics? 

nasts,  endeavored,  in  a  letter,  to  show  that  in  reahty 
comparatively  little  of  what  had  been  credited  to  the 
Swedes  by  this  conference  was  due  them  and  empha- 
sized, on  the  other  hand,  such  as  came  from  the  German 
system.  Editorially,  Dr.  Gulick  answered,  saying  in 
substance  that  we  Americans  want  the  best.  We  do  not 
care  from  where  it  comes.  If  it  is  Swedish,  let  us  have 
that.  If  it  is  German  let  us  adopt  it.  But  the  fact  is 
that  the  Swedes  have  tried  to  convince  us,  while  the  Ger- 
mans have  to  a  great  extent  held  aloof.  We  must,  how- 
ever, all  pull  together.  Again,  Mr.  Stecher  wrote  that 
he  was  sorry  that  the  German  system  w"as  not  so  well 
known  among  the  Americans  as  might  be  desired,  which 
was  attributable  in  part  to  the  fact  that  the  Germans 
do  not  believe  that  gymnastics  can  be  studied  from 
books,  and  circumstances  had  never  driven  them  to  give 
a  complete  exposition  of  their  system  and  its  methods  in 
the  English  language.  Dr.  Gulick  acknowledged  the 
truth  of  this,  but  claimed  that,  after  all,  "principles  can 
and  should  be  stated."  Thus  directly  challenged,  Mr. 
Stecher  wTote  a  new  letter,  to  which  Dr.  Gulick  re- 
torted: "It  does  not  seem  to  us  that  Mr.  Stecher  has 
stated  the  principles  at  all.  At  least  he  has  not  given 
us  anything  which  would  correspond  to  the  principles 
that  were  given  as  underlying  the  Swedish  system — 
nothing  which  would  correspond  physiologically  to  the 
Swedish  Day's  Order,  or  the  gymnastic  progression. 
We  wish  we  might  secure  such  a  statement,  if  the  prin- 
ciples exist." '  Now  entered  upon  the  arena  Dr.  E.  H. 
Arnold,  of  New  Haven,  Conn.,  and  read,  at  the  tenth 
annual  meeting  of  the  American  Association  for  the 
Advancement  of  Physical  Education,  1895,  his  paper. 


1.    Those  who  are  directly  Interested  in  this  controversy  are  re- 
ferred to  the  "Physical  Education,"  Vols.  I-II. 


WKy  Do  We  Teach  Gymr\astlcs?  43 

"Some  of  the  Principles  that  Guide  INIe  in  Teaching 
German  Gymnastics,"  "in  answer  to  many  requests  for 
a  statement  of  the  principles  underlying"  this  system. 

The  following  questions  and  answers  were  exchanged 
between  Dr.  Gulick,  who  had  exerted  the  main  influence 
to  bring  forth  this  paper,  and  Dr.  Arnold  : 

Dr.  Gulick — I  would  like  to  ask  Dr.  Arnold  if  I  understand 
tliat  this  is  a  statement  of  the  principles  of  the  German  system 
of  gynmastics,  as  understood  and  taught  at  the  normal  school 
and  as  carried  out  by  the  teachers  of  gymnastics  of  the  German 
schools,  or  is  it  his  owTi? 

Mr.  Arnold — In  general,  it  may  be  said  to  be  that  of  the 
g}Tunastic  school  at  Milwaukee.     In  detail,  perhaps,  it  is  my  own. 

Dr.  Gulick — These  principles  have  been  formulated  and  are 
taught  at  the  German  school  at  Milwaukee? 

Mr.  Arnold — That  I  do  not  know. 

Dr.  Gulick,  apparently,  was  not  satisfied  with  this 
answer,  but  addressed  an  inquiry  to  Mr.  Ballin,  the  then 
editor  of  "Mind  and  Body,"  which  represents  German 
gymnastics,  who  returned  the  answer  that  the  German 
gymnasts  do  "not  believe  in  censorship,"  and  that  "no 
single  individual  is  considered  an  absolute  authority."  ' 
And  thus  ended  the  endeavor  to  get  from  the  German 
organization  or  its  leading  men  an  authoritative  state- 
ment of  the  fundamental  principles  for  which  they,  as  a 
body,  would  stand.  Inquiries  were  met  with  generalities 
and  evasions.  We  have  no  declaration  of  principles  by 
the  Germans.  Is  it  because  they  have  no  common 
ground  upon  which  to  stand?  Is  it  because  there  is 
no  German  system  f  I  consider  it  a  matter  of  principle, 
this  question  of  the  object  in  view,  and  would  consider 
it  of  extreme  importance  to  know  the  German  position 
in  the  matter.  But  the  Germans  seem  unwilling  to  state 
it  unequivocally.     They  do  not  repudiate  Dr.  Arnold's 


'Mind  and  Body,"  Vol.  II,  p.  57. 


44 


WKy  Do  We  Teach  Gymnastics? 


views,  but  neither  do  they  indorse  them.  The  principles 
in  his  paper  still  remain  his,  not  those  of  the  Germans. 

But  as  he  is  one  of  the  leading  German  gymnasts ;  as 
no  repudiation  comes  from  their  organization ;  as  Dr. 
Hartung  maintains  essentially  the  same  position,  even 
using  to  a  great  extent  the  same  expressions ;  as  a 
number  of  other  Germans  have  hinted  in  the  same  di- 
rection, we  may  suppose  that  the  official  German  posi- 
tion is  essentially  that  of  Dr.  Arnold,  though  I  may 
state  as  my  personal  opinion,  based  upon  conversations 
with  a  number  of  their  teachers,  that  they  are  gradually 
breaking  loose  from  it  and  arranging  themselves  with 
the  Swedish  confreres  as  to  the  object  in  view. 

I  refer  my  readers  to  Dr.  Arnold's  article,  which  I 
consider  a  most  remarkable  production,  and  will  only 
here  quote  his  contentions  as  to  the  aim  of  gymnastics : 

"With  me,  gymnastics  are  mainly  an  art,  or  a  science,  if  you 
wish,  which  teaches  the  use  of  our  muscular  apparatus  in  the 
most  efficient  way;  i.  e.,  adjust  motion  and  locomotion  so  that 
the  greatest  amount  of  work  may  be  done  with  the  smallest  expen- 
diture, of  course." 

In  other  words,  his  aim  is  co-ordination,  and  for  this 
purpose  he  educates  the  senses,  develops  the  judgment 
as  to  distance,  direction,  resistance,  etc.,  a  purely  educa- 
tional process.  Positive  hygienic  benefits  he  seeks  only 
incidentally.  He  practically  says :  Avoid  what  is  inju- 
rious, but  do  not  endeavor  to  formulate  your  exercises 
for  the  purpose  of  gaining  any  direct  hygienic  effects 
beyond  that  which  results  from  muscular  activity  in 
general.  It  would  be  futile.  The  "specific  effects" 
claimed  by  the  Swedes  are  imaginary,  and,  to  some 
extent  at  least,  proven  false. 

"I  regard  all  exercises  arranged  to  have  specific  eflFect  on 
circulation  and  respiration  as  futile.  I  cannot  assign  to  circula- 
tion and  respiration  the  first  place,  when  considering  them  for 


WKy  Do  We  Teach  Gymnastics  7  45 

establishing  gymnastic  principles.  They  both  serve  only  part 
of  one  function,  viz.:  nutrition.  Nutrition  is  dependent  on  a  good 
many  more  factors  than  circulation  and  respiration.  They  ful- 
fil their  mission  under  guidance  of  nervous  influences.  These 
nervous  influences  are  of  a  peculiar  kind.  We  have  no  control 
over  them  by  Avill.  We  may  interfere  with  the  respiratory  move- 
ments by  will,  to  a  limited  degree,  but  we  cannot  wilfully  stop 
respiration  altogether,  nor  can  we  regulate  it  for  any  length 
of  time.  Nor  does  our  interference  affect  anything  but  in- 
halation and  exhalation.  That  is  the  most  crude  process  in 
respiration,  that  might  be  called  outer  respiration.  Over  the 
exchange  of  gases  from  air  in  the  lung  to  the  blood,  middle  respi- 
ration, and  over  the  inner  respiration,  i.  e.,  the  exchange  of  gases 
from  blood  to  tissue  and  vice  versa,  we  have  no  wilful  control 
whatsoever." 

The  term  "specific  effect,"  which  is  here  employed 
by  Dr.  Arnold,  was,  so  far  as  I  know,  first  used  by  a 
Swede — Georgii — in  18-i7.  But  it  has  never  been  gen- 
erally adopted  either  in  Sweden  or  Germany.  While  the 
German  Schreber  accepted  it  as  early  as  1852,  the  Swede 
Satherberg  preached  against  it  in  1855.  Perhaps  it 
might  be  well  to  define  the  term.  When  I  use  it,  which 
is  but  rarely,  I  put  it  in  opposition  to  the  expression, 
general  effects.  I  mean  with  the  general  effect  of  a  cer- 
tain grotip  of  exercises,  that  effect  which  is  common 
to  all  the  exercises  of  that  group,  while  the  specific  ef- 
fect of  any  one  exercise  belonging  to  that  group  is  that 
by  which  it  is  characterized  from  the  rest,  that  which 
is  peculiarly  its  own.  If  a  person  stands  with  his  arms 
extended  sideward,  palms  down,  and  then  rotates  his 
palms  up,  there  will  be  certain  effects  upon  the  supina- 
tors, their  nerves  and  vessels,  which  will  be  similar, 
however  the  supination  be  executed.  These  are  general 
effects.  But  if  he  supinates  the  hands,  taking  care  that 
the  axis  of  motion  is  the  little  finger,  there  will  be  a 
concomitant  strong  expansion  of  the  chest  which  does 


46  WKy  Do  We  Teach  Gymnastics? 

not  result  from  a  rotation  around,  for  instance,  the  little 
finger.  That. is  a  specific  effect.  All  slow  trunk  bend- 
ings  forward  from  a  standing  posture  have  for  general 
efifect  activity  of  the  dorsal  muscles.  But  if  the  trunk 
bending  is  done  with  one  foot  advanced  and  the  feet 
parallel,  there  will  be  a  specific  effect  in  the  extension  of 
the  ham-strings  of  the  advanced  leg,  not  noted  in  trunk 
bendings  with  the  feet  equally  advanced.  If  I  lie  on  my 
back  and  raise  my  legs,  it  does  not  matter  how  I  do  it, 
my  abdominal  muscles  must  always  contract.  That  is  a 
general  effect  of  these  movements.  But  if  I  stretch  my 
arms  in  the  direction  of  the  head  and  there  grasp  a 
firm  support,  the  raising  of  the  legs  becomes  much  easier 
than  if  I  have  the  arms  at  my  sides.  That  is  the  specific 
difference  between  the  two  different  starting  postures. 
These  examples,  which,  of  course,  might  easily  be  mul- 
tiplied, suffice  as  explanation  of  the  term.  All  exercises 
have  some  effects  in  common ;  these  are  general.  Each 
exercise  has  some  effect  different  from  that  of  every 
other  exercise ;  that  is  its  specific  effect. 

Now  as  to  the  specific  effects  on  respiration  of  cer- 
tain exercises. 

The  notion  is  no  doubt  very  general  within  the  ranks 
of  gymnasts  of  all  schools,  as  well  as  among  the  lay 
public,  that  more  oxygen  will  be  absorbed  by  the  system 
and  more  waste  products  will  be  given  off  by  it  as  a  re- 
sult of  simple  voluntary  increase  of  the  air  going  into 
and  out  of  the  lungs  in  a  given  time.  I  have  before  me 
a  book  on  "Respiratory  Exercises," '  and  I  find  in  its 
preface  these  words : 

"By  modifying  the  respiratory  movements  in  certain 
ways  we  can  produce  profound  effects  upon  the  organ- 


1.    Respiratory  exercises  in  the  treatment  of  disease.    By  Harry 
Campbell,  M.  D.  New  York,  Wood  &  Co.,  i839. 


WKy  Do  We  Teach  Gymnastics? 


47 


ism.  Not  only  can  we  regulate  the  absorption  of  oxygen 
and  the  elimination  of  the  respiratory  excreta.  .  .  ."  In 
the  body  of  the  book,  speaking  of  breathing  exercises 
conjoined  with  various  arm  movements,  the  author  also 
says  that  the  enhanced  respiratory  activity  is  in  con- 
siderable excess  of  what  the  exercises  themselves  would 
induce,  and  furthermore  that  the  blood  is  kept  in  a  high 
state  of  oxygenation  and  with  a  low  percentage  of  CO2. 
I  firmly  believe  that  it  is  the  general  opinion  among  both 
Swedish  and  German  gymnasts  that  mechanical  rhyth- 
mic motions  of  the  arms  in  definite  directions,  called  by 
the  Swedes  Respiratory  movements,  will  assist  the  ex- 
change between  the  air,  the  blood,  and  the  tissues.  I 
take  the  opportunity  to  deny,  in  behalf  of  the  Swedish 
gymnasts,  that  they  consider  the  greatest  value  of  these 
exercises  to  lie  in  the  improvement  of  the  respiration. 
The  main  function  of  these  exercises,  according  to  them, 
is  to  improve  the  venous  and  lymphar  return.  I  de- 
plore that  Posse  has,  in  the  synopsis  on  page  257  of  his 
book,  apparently  given  support  to  a  wrong  impression 
of  the  teachings  of  the  Swedes.  But  this  wrong  impres- 
sion is,  to  a  great  extent,  removed  by  himself  because 
he  begins  with  an  expose  of  the  influence  on  the  circula- 
tion, passes  over  to  the  improvement  of  the  lung  tissue 
itself  and  of  the  respiratory  muscles,  and  comes  in  the 
third  place  to  deal  with  the  changes  taking  place  in  the 
respiration. 

Of  these  he  says : 

"As  respiration  grows  deeper,  the  tidal  volume  of  air  in- 
creases, and  more  blood  passes  through  the  pulmonary  vessels  in 
the  same  given  time.  As  a  result  a  greater  amount  of  oxygen 
will  be  taken  into  the  blood;  more  energy  will  be  supplied  to  the 

body;   the  metamorphosis  of  tissue  will  be  increased Also 

at  exhalation  the  increased  tidal  volume  carries  with  it  a  greater 
amount  of  carbon  dioxide  and  water,  so  that  some  of  the  most 


4S  WKy  Do  We  Teach  Gymnastics? 

essential  elements  of  excretion  are  being  eliminated  with  greater 
rapidity;  waste  matter  is  being  removed  in  gi'eater  quantities." 

Posse  thus  asserts,  as  Campbell  does,  as  most  gym- 
nasts do,  specific  effects  upon  both  middle  and  inner 
respiration  by  respiratory  movements.  This  Arnold  de- 
nies. 

We  all  know  that  a  greater  pulmonary  ventilation 
takes  place  because  of  these  movements.  We  also  know 
that  even  after  the  first  few  respiratory  movements, 
when  this  ventilation  is  completed,  there  is  still  an  in- 
creased quantity  of  CO2  exhaled,  which  conclusively 
shows  that  more  CO2  is  given  off  by  the  blood  in  a  given 
time.  We  know  that  part  of  this  increased  CO2  is  due 
to  the  increased  activity  of  the  respiratory  muscles.  Do 
we  not  also  know  that  another  part  is  due  to  increased 
excretion  of  the  CO2  previously  formed  and  existing  in 
the  extra  pulmonary  parts  of  the  body?  Landois  at 
least  says  that  "ein  sichtbarer  Einfluss  auf  die  Ent- 
leerung  der  im  Korper  bereits  gebildet  vorhandenen 
CO:  hat  sich  zu  erkennen  gegeben."  And  when 
Vierordt  shows  a  change  in  the  CO2  excretion  of  from 
258  ccm.  to  1392  ccm.  a  minute,  according  to  the  number 
of  respiratory  movements,  or  a  change  of  from  21  ccm. 
to  72  ccm.  in  one  single  movement,  according  to  its 
depth,  it  is  rather  difficult  for  me  to  believe  that  all  of 
this  comes  from  the  increased  muscular  activity.  There 
can  be  no  doubt  in  my  mind  that  the  middle  respiration 
is  enhanced  as  to  the  excretion  of  CO2,  just  as  Posse 
and  Landois  say. 

Now  it  seems  to  me  likely,  or  possible,  that  Dr.  Ar- 
nold has  misunderstood  the  position  of  the  Swedes  in 
this  regard ;  that  he  has  thought  that  they  promulgated 
the  theory  that  by  respiratory  movements  more  CO2 
would  be  extracted  from  a  given  quantity  of  blood  or 


WKy  Do  We  Teach  Gymnastics?  49 

more  O  would  be  put  into  a  given  quantity  of  blood. 
So  far  as  I  know  this  has  never  been  taught  by  them. 
It  is  worth  noting  that  Posse  savs  that  the  increased 
exchange  takes  place  as  a  result  of  thoracic  aspiration. 
If  this  is  not  sound  physiology,  I  certainly  do  not  know 
what  is.  But  even  had  the  Swedes  taught  that  a  greater 
arterialization  of  any  given  quantity  of  blood  takes 
place,  they  would  have  some  good  support  for  their 
view.  Landois  says  :  "Intensive  respiratory  movements 
— even  artificial  ones — increase  the  O  absorption  of  the 
blood  to  saturation,"  Under  normal  conditions  the  O- 
solution  in  the  arterial  blood  is  about  90  per  cent,  and 
consequently  we  have  it  in  our  power  to  increase  the 
middle  respiration  10  per  cent  in  this  regard.  Turn  the 
matter  in  any  way  I  want,  I  cannot  but  find  support  for 
the  position  of  the  Swedes  and  a  refutation  of  Dr.  Ar- 
nold's stand. 

Pfliiger,  v.  Voit  and  numerous  other  physiologists 
have  apparently  established  that  the  number  and  depth 
of  the  respiratory  movements  have  practically  no  influ- 
ence on  the  metabolism.  They  declare  Arnold  in  the 
right  and  Posse  to  be  wrong.  But  whatever  experi- 
mental evidence  may  be  brought  forth,  I  think  it  safe  to 
assume  that  everybody,  physiologists  as  well  as  gym- 
nasts, does  recognize  that  deep,  powerful  respiration  has 
a  mighty  influence  on  the  general  nutrition.  It  is  not  my 
desire  to  crawl  out  of  an  untenable  position.  But  are  we 
not  all  agreed  that  even  occasional  deep  filling  of  the 
lungs,  directly  or  indirectly,  helps  to  increase  our  vigor? 

Dr.  Arnold  also  denies  that  we  can  gain  any  specific 
effects  on  the  circulation.  In  absence  of  any  denial  by 
him  of  any  particular  claim  by  the  Swedes  in  this  regard, 
I  take  it  for  granted  that  his  position  here  is  due  to  a 
misunderstanding  of  what  the  Swedes  do  teach.     Be- 


50  WKy  Do  We  Teach  Gymnastics  7 

cause  Dr.  Arnold  cannot  mean  exactly  what  he  says  that 
over  circulation  "we  have  no  wilful  influence,  if  we  ex- 
clude the  interference  of  wilfully  regulated  respiration 
and  its  effect  on  circulation  by  way  of  thoracic  aspira- 
tion."   We  certainly  can  influence  the  venous  and  lym- 
phar  circulation  differently  by  different  postures   and 
movements.     Gravity,  change  of  vascular  tension,  and 
the  vein-pumps  are  three  factors  to  the  effectiveness  of 
which  in  this  regard  Braune  has  called  our  attention, 
and  which  nobody  as  yet  has  successfully  denied.     We 
certainly  can  divert  the  circulation  from  the  abdominal 
tract  to  the  muscles  and  the  integument  by  muscular 
contraction  in  general.     By  localizing  this  contraction 
in  this  part  of  the  body  or  in  that,  we  certainly    can  di- 
rect the  arterial  flow  more  or  less  at  will.    We  certainly 
can  influence  the  pulse  rate  differently  by  different  move- 
ments.   We  can  influence  the  circulation  in  hundreds  of 
ways  by  using  different  exercises.    Are  not  these  specific 
effects  ?    If  a  person  comes  to  the  gymnasium  with  de- 
ficient portal  circulation,  and  another  with  a  fatty  heart, 
one  with  tachycardia,  the  other  with  a  normal  pulse  rate, 
does  Dr.  Arnold  give  them  the  same  exercises,  or  tell 
them  that  they  might  just  as  well  go  bicycling  as  to  take 
any  prescribed  exercises  in  the  gymnasium?     I  think 
not.     He  will  choose  special  exercises  for  their  specific 
effects.    So  will  we  all. 

The  only  specific  effect  upon  circulation  which  Dr. 
Arnold  mentions  as  disproved  is  "the  decrease  of  the 
heart's  action"  by  "slow  legmovements."  He  says  that  Dr. 
Anderson  has  disposed  of  that  claim  of  the  Swedes,  and 
Dr.  Fitz,  in  the  article  to  which  reference  has  been  made, 
takes  the  same  position.  As  a  matter  of  fact.  Dr.  Ander- 
son has  proven  absolutely  nothing  in  the  matter,  as  I 


WKy  Do  We  Teach  Gymnastics?  ^^ 

shall  show  when  I  come  to  take  up  the  "Leg  move- 
ments." 

I  thus  claim  that  each  exercise  has  a  specific  effect  '  / 
upon  both  respiration  and  circulation,  and  upon  a  num- 
ber of  other  functions  as  well.  I  claim  that  it  is  our  duty 
to  utilize  these  specific  effects  for  direct  positive  hygienic 
benefits,  and  not  to  be  satisfied  with  the  mere  negative 
benefit  of  avoiding  injury,  nor  to  allow  "hygienic  rules  to 
determine  for  us  classes  and  forms  oi  exercises  only 
generally,  not  in  detail,  4iot  the  exercises'  themselves." 
In  fact,  I  have  pondered  long  over  the  meaning  of  this 
statement,  with  the  result  that  finally  I  have  come  to 
the  conclusion  that  it  is  likely  that  here,  as  at  so  many 
other  occasions,  the  reason  for  misunderstanding  is  to 
be  found  in  different  meanings  attached  to  words, 
and  that  the  key  lies  in  the  words  "forms"  and  "exer- 
cises." It  may  mean,  and  I  hope  it  does,  that  each  exer- 
cise consists  of  a  number  of  movements.  The  form 
of  the  latter,  that  is  the  movements  themselves,  is  to  be 
determined  by  hygienic  considerations.  But  the  order 
and  the  manner  in  which  these  different  movements  are 
to  be  taught,  individually,  in  combinations,  or  in  se- 
quences, that  's  the  exercises,  as  distinct  from  their  in- 
dividual phases,  are  to  be  determined  on  pedagogic  prin- 
ciples. If  that  is  the  author's  meaning,  I  am  ready  to 
accept  it  without  change,  as  I  shall  show  when  I  come 
to  speak  of  progression. 

Before  we  leave  the  hygienic  purpose  of  gymnastics, 
a  few  words  should  be  said  regarding  the  "muscle  build- 
ing" tendency  of  a  number  of  teachers.  These  belong, 
to  no  particular  school,  but  I  believe  them  to  be  the 
products  of  what  Dr.  Arnold  has  called  the  "develop- 
mental school,"  and  to  which  I  have  attached  the  term 
the  "anthropometric  school."    To  this  school  the  tape 


■52  WKy  Do  We  Teach  Gymrkastics? 

measure  is  of  the  greatest  importance.  Its  members  de- 
light in  bringing  forth  voluminous  muscles.  They  do  so 
ostensibly  for  hygienic  purposes,  and  seem  to  believe 
that  a  great  volume  of  muscle  tissue  is  synonymous  with 
health.  And  as  a  result,  our  muscular  "professors" 
adorn  their  advertisements  with  pictures  of  themselves 
as  proofs  of  the  superiority  of  their  different  "systems." 
Now,  it  is  a  fact  that  health  presupposes  well  devel- 
oped, active  muscles.  But  well  developed  muscles  in  the 
true  physiological  sense  are  not  necessarily  large  mus- 
cles. The  well  developed  muscle  is  characterized  by  its 
tonicity,  its  firmness,  its  solidity,  its  small  amount  of  in- 
terstitial fat.  All  these  qualities  are  gained  by  moderate 
activity,  according  to  the  general  constitution  of  the  in- 
dividual. If  the  activity  be  increased  beyond  a  certain 
limit,  the  volume  may  increase  and  thus  give  the  impres- 
sion of  still  better  development,  but  it  is  in  reality  not  a 
physiological  betterment  but  a  true  hypertrophy  with 
enlarged  and  degenerated  nuclei,  distinguished  from 
pseudo-hypertrophy  mainly  by  the  difference  in  the  fat 
and  connective  tissue.  Such  a  muscular  system  drains 
the  other  organs  of  vitality.  It  is  the  kind  of  muscles 
which  deteriorate  rapidly  as  soon  as  the  severe  activity 
which  brought  them  on  is  given  up.  It  is  a  condition 
which  does  not  assist  in  carrying  on  the  serious  work  of 
life,  but  is  good  only  for  strength-tests  and  the  like.  It 
is  an  actual  handicap  to  the  average  man,  because  with 
the  degeneracy  of  the  muscular  system  goes  a  degen- 
eracy of  the  various  vital  organs.  Our  business  men, 
our  scholars,  our  professional  men,  the  men  upon  whom 
falls  the  burden  of  advancing  our  civilization,  need  not 
large  muscles.  Neither  do  those  whose  duty  it  is  to  per- 
form manual  labor  need  a  special  training  to  develop 
their  muscles.     This  training  comes  automatically  from 


WKy  Do  We  Teach  Gymrvastlcs?  53 

their  daily  labors,  if  only  their  nutritive  organs  are 
healthy  and  nutrition  is  supplied  them.  7\11  need  good, 
healthy,  well  developed  muscles,  firm  to  the  touch,  rapid 
to  respond,  with  long  range  of  motion.  None  needs 
big-  muscles.  The  teacher  therefore  shall  never  see  the 
aim  of  gymnastics  in  building  up  masses  of  muscular  tis- 
sue. He  must  look  beyond,  below  the  muscles.  He 
must  see  to  the  harmonious  development  of  the  vital 
organs. 

Some  pages  back  I  put  the  question  whether  there 
are  any  special  duties  as  to  hygiene  and  therapy  which 
fall  to  the  lot  of  the  teacher  of  gymnastics.  I  have  tried 
to  the  best  of  my  ability  to  show  that  he  certainly  has 
very  positive  hygienic  duties.  But  how  about  the  ther- 
apeutic field?  Shall  he  treat  diseases?  Shall  he  be  a 
kind  of  mechanical  doctor  to  whom  John  and  Jane  may 
go  for  their  aches  and  pains,  for  their  crooked  backs 
and  flat  chests,  for  their  breathlessness  and  their  head- 
aches ?  I  answer  most  emphatically,  that  the  gymnastic 
teacher,  as  teacher,  has  no  duties  whatsoever  in  this  re- 
gard, except  the  very  pressing  one  to  keep  his  hands  off. 
He  must  not  compete  or  interfere  with  the  family  physi- 
cian. I  wish  to  put  that  statement  in  the  strongest  pos- 
sible terms.  It  requires  a  special  training  to  take 
therapeutic  measures,  a  training  which  the  gymnastic 
teacher  has  not  and  needs  not.  Whenever  he  steps  from 
his  own  field  as  a  teacher  to  dabble  with  disease,  of 
which  he  knows  nothing,  he  is  a  quack,  and  should  be 
repelled  with  just  as  much  energy  as  he  himself  should 
show  when  a  physician  endeavors  to  direct  gymnastic 
exercises  of  which  he  knows  nothing,  upon  the  fallacious 
plea  that  his  medical  training  gives  him  an  insight  in 
gymnastics. 


54  WKy  Do  We  Teach  Gymnastics? 

But  if  the  gymnast  shall  not  practise  therapy,  he 
must  frequently  hover  on  the  boundary  line  to  that  field. 
His  main  duty  is  hygienic,  and  hygienic  measures  are  not 
only  preventative,  but  curative  as  well.  As  a  teacher  he 
stands  to  some  extent  in  the  place  of  the  parents.  The 
mother  has  a  right  and  a  duty  to  care  for  the  children 
in  their  small  ailments.  So  the  teacher  can  and  shall 
give  advice.  If  the  mother  is  right  in  giving  a  hot  bath 
and  tucking  the  little  one  into  bed  when  he  has  a  cold, 
the  teacher  has  an  equal  right  and  duty  to  advise  the 
pupil  to  take  some  special  exercises  when  he  sees  the 
latter  going  around  with  his  chest  on  his  back.  This  is 
not  to  pose  as  an  expert  in  therapy.  It  is  only  the  appli- 
cation of  common  sense.  If  the  teacher  has  not  got  too 
elevated  opinions  of  his  own  far-reaching  knowledge, 
but  keeps  well  within  his  limitations,  there  need  be  no 
trouble.  He  may,  of  course,  make  a  mistake  now  and 
then,  but  no  blame  need  attach  to  him  on  that  score  any 
more  than  it  falls  to  the  mother  who  in  a  particular 
case  would  have  done  better  to  send  for  the  physician 
immediately,  instead  of  trying  home  remedies.  We 
must  recollect  that  the  public  does  not  consult  physi- 
cians before  they  are  obliged  to  do  so,  and  we  cannot 
make  them  do  it.  Common  sense  and  hearty  co-opera- 
tion between  teacher,  parents,  and  the  physician  will 
solve  the  problem. 

But  if  the  therapeutic  activity  of  the  teacher  is  mini- 
mal when  the  question  is  of  the  individual  and  his  ail- 
ments, it  grows  in  importance  when  it  concerns  the  class 
as  a  whole.  Take  for  instance  a  class  in  a  public  school 
of  one  of  our  large  cities.  The  pupils  are  frequently 
to  a  great  extent  of  the  same  race,  subject  to  essentially 
the  same  environment,  breathing  the  same  air,  eating 
the  same  kind  of  food,  keeping  the  same  hours,  dwelling 


WKy  Do  We  Teach  Gymnastics  7  56 

in  the  same  kind  of  tenements,  playing  the  same  games, 
sitting  the  same  number  of  hours  on  the  same  school 
benches  occupied  with  the  same  kind  of  work.  What 
wonder  then  that  the  class  as  a  whole  is  representative 
of  a  definite  physical  type  with  the  same  excellencies, 
the  same  deficiencies.  It  is  a  fact,  is  it  not,  that  in  a 
class  of  fifty,  it  is  nothing  unvisual  to  find  half  the  number 
more  or  less  kyphotic,  about  an  equal  number  having 
lordosis,  10-15  per  cent  showing  a  tendency  to  pronated 
feet,  quite  a  few  having  habitual  headache,  or  nose  bleed, 
or  cold  feet.  Now,  as  I  have  said,  I  may  advise  each 
one,  though  I  do  not  think  that  I  ought  to  treat  them 
individually.  But  should  I  not  also  see  to  it  that  I  give 
the  whole  class  such  exercises  as  have  a  direct  bearing 
upon  the  prevailing  defects  ?  Should  I  not  even  divide 
up  the  class  into  sections  according  to  the  types  in  ex- 
istence, so  as  to  be  able  to  differentiate  the  work  some- 
what in  accordance  with  the  needs  of  each  ?  You  may 
sneer  at  this  as  practising  therapeutics  at  wholesale,  but 
after  all  is  it  not  the  duty  of  the  teacher?  He  knows, 
we  all  know,  that  the  great  majority  of  these  cases  will 
not  come  under  more  competent  hands  than  our  own, 
except  in  case  the  incipient  defects  get  time  to  develop 
into  serious  troubles.  If  each  school  had  a  school  phy- 
sician, if  to  each  gymnasium  there  were  attached  a  prac- 
titioner of  therapeutic  gymnastics,  the  problem  would  be 
different.  But  these  conditions  do  not  exist,  and  the 
teacher  shall  therefore  do  what  little  he  can  do.  It  is,  of 
course,  true  that  the  teacher  is  supposed  to  deal  with 
normal  children.  But  the  normal  child,  that  is,  the  aver- 
age child,  is  deficient  in  many  directions.  The  deficien- 
cies are  more  or  less  incipient,  to  be  sure,  but  that  is  just 
the  reason  why  something  may  be  hoped  from  the 
otherwise  inefBcient  actions  of  the  teacher.  To  abandon 


56  WKy  Do  We  Teach  Gymnastics? 

all  corrective  measures  for  the  children  depicted  by  Mr. 
Ballin  for  fear  of  making  an  orthopedic  institution  of  the 
school  is  preposterous.  I  do  not  believe  he  speaks  for 
the  rank  and  file  of  the  German  gymnasts,  because  I 
believe  his  conception  of  the  duties  of  the  teacher  of 
gymnastics  in  this  regard  to  be  fundamentally  wrong. 
I  knouf  that  his  conception  has  never  found  resonance 
among  the  Swedish  gymnasts.  And  I  believe  that  the 
school  authorities  of  our  land  never  have  and  never  will 
subscribe  to  his  ideas.  As  proofs  of  this  I  quote  the  fol- 
lowing questions  submitted  by  the  Board  of  Examiners 
to  candidates  for  positions  in  the  high  schools  of  New 
York  City :  What  exercises  would  you  prescribe  for  a 
sunken  chest  (1899)  ?  Give  a  specific  instance  of  some 
physical  defect  or  deformity  that  is  susceptible  of  cor- 
rection by  gymnastic  exercise.  What  exercise  would 
you  prescribe  for  such  defect  of  deformity  (1899)  ? 
Mention  three  cases  requiring  corrective  gymnastics 
likely  to  arise  in  high  school  work.  Prescribe  exercises 
for  each  (1900).  Describe  the  effects  on  the  bodily  func- 
tions of  kyphosis.  Explain  the  causes  of  lordosis.  Men- 
tion three  ways  of  treating  scoliosis  (1900). 

These  and  similar  ones  show  conclusively  that  the 
Board  of  Examiners  expect  the  teacher  to  do  something 
to  correct  common  defects.  Are  they  wrong  in  this  ?  I 
think  not.  Do  they  want  to  make  orthopedic  institu- 
tions of  the  schools  ?  I  think  they  only  want  the  teach- 
ers to  apply  common  sense. 

SUMMARY. 

The  prime  purpose  of  gymnastics  in  our  educational 
institutions,  including  not  only  schools,  academies,  col- 
leges, etc.,  but  also  voluntary  associations,  like  the 
Turnvereine  and  the  Y,  M.  C.  A.,  is  hygienic. 


WKy  Do  We  Teaoh  Gymnastics?  57 

Together  with  sports  and  games  it  must  supply  such 
an  amount  of  activity  as  to  keep  high  the  general  vigor 
of  the  system  in  spite  of  the  deteriorating  influence  of 
the  sedentary  life  connected  with  study  and  business. 

Every  posture  and  movement  has  eflfects  in  various 
directions  which  distinguish  it  from  every  other  posture 
and  movement.  Some  of  these  "specific  effects"  may  be 
injurious.  Such  injurious  postures  and  movements 
must,  in  accord  with  the  hygienic  purpose  of  gymnas- 
tics, be  excluded.  Other  "specific  effects"  are  distinctly 
beneficial  in  regulating,  in  some  way  or  other,  one  or 
more  functions  included  in  the  general  term  nutrition. 
These  must  be  utilized.  The  general  invigorating  activ- 
ity must  not,  therefore,  consist  of  any  and  all  kinds  of 
movements,  but  each  movement  used  as  an  exercise 
must  be  selected  for  a  definite  hygienic  purpose. 

The  hygienic  purpose  includes,  to  a  certain  extent, 
the  aim  to  alleviate  common  defects  and  deformities. 
But  curative  measures  against  actual  disease  do  not  be- 
long in  the  general  gymnasium. 

By  raising  the  general  health  of  the  pupil  ^fc  gym- 
nastics shall  indirectly  assist  in  true  educational  work, 
making  possible  better  mental  development  upon  the 
basis  of  a  better  physique.  This  shall  be  done  more  di- 
rectly by  the  application  of  pcfikigwjigic  principles  in  the 
teaching  of  this  as  well  as  every  other  branch,  so  that 
the  material,  selected  upon  hygienic  grounds,  is  pre- 
sented in  such  a  manner  an4  sequence  as  to  correspond 
to  the  gradual  uftfekhyg  of  the  mental  powers  of  the 
pupil.  ^v^fl^k^i^ 

To  speak  of  education  in  sense  perception,  attention, 
judgment,  reasoning,  etc.,  as  the  chief  object  of  the  gyrft- 
i^astie' instruction  under  normal  conditions  is  a  mistake 
which  should  be  deprecated,  because  thereby  the  hy- 
gienic purpose  may  be  overshadowed. 


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